This blog post is written by Susan Harris, our Cataloguer of Photographs, working on the British Library’s Unlocking Hidden Collections project. This initiative aims to process, research and catalogue the Library’s hidden collections, making them more accessible to researchers and the public.

In May 2023, the descendants of amateur photographer Joseph Gaye (1852-1926) donated a collection of photographic material of his views of the Kathmandu Valley and India taken between 1888 and 1899 to the British Library. Joseph's descendant Mary-Margaret Gaye and her husband Doug Halverson spent many years researching Joseph's career in South Asia and identification of his views. We are most grateful to Mary-Margaret and Doug for making this collection available for researchers documenting the transformation of Kathmandu before the earthquake of 1934. Their publication is listed in the bibliography below.

Joseph Gaye was born in Northfleet, Kent, in 1852. At 18, he enlisted with the 4th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade and went to India as a rifleman in 1873. Gaye left the army after completing his 12-year enlistment term in 1882 to lead several Indian military bands. In 1888, he, with his wife, Mary Elizabeth Short, moved to Kathmandu, Nepal, where he served as bandmaster to the Royal Nepalese Army under Maharaja Bir Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana. In 1892, he became a bandmaster in turn to three viceroys of India (Marquess of Lansdowne, Earl of Elgin, and Lord Curzon of Kedleston) before returning to England in 1899. In 1905, Gaye and his four sons moved to Canada, where he died in 1926 in Lemberg, Canada. From 1888 to 1899, he produced photographs of Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley, Burma and India; these were among his possessions, along with a large studio camera, at the time of his death.

The Joseph Gaye collection is an exciting addition to the British Library, containing 91 glass negatives, five cellulose negatives and 32 albumen prints, primarily of the Kathmandu Valley, with a few from India. The subjects vary from architecture and landscapes to street scenes and people, including portraits of his family. Gaye’s photographs provided a unique insight at a time when few foreigners were allowed into Nepal.

Here are a few highlights from the collection of Nepal’s architectural monuments, some that remain today and others that have disappeared due to natural disasters or urban development:

A crowd of curious onlookers gathered before a building on the southwest corner of the Hanuman Dhoka Darbar complex in Kathmandu Durbar Square (fig.1). The building, from 1847, was the original Gaddhi Baithak, a palace used for coronations and for meeting foreign heads of state. It was in the Newar style with influences from the Mughal architecture of northern India. A western façade, as seen in the photograph, was probably added later. Prime Minister Chandra Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana (1863-1929) of Nepal,  replaced it in 1908 with the neo-classical building that exists today.

Fig.1. A crowd in front of the western facade of the original Gaddhi Baithak, Basantapur Durbar Square, Kathmandu. Taken by Joseph Gaye, 1888-1892. Albumen Print, 155 x 105 mm. British Library, Photo 1424/3(17).

Patan Durbar Square, in the city of Lalitpur, is one of the three Durbar Squares in the Kathmandu Valley; it has been through two significant earthquakes in 1934 and 2015. Gaye capture the square before these earthquakes, looking south, towards a crowd of observers and a line of temples and statues (fig.2). John Alexander Dunn, an Officer of the Geological Survey of India (GSI), also took a photograph (fig.3) of the square, looking north, after the 1934 earthquake. The only recognizable landmarks still standing are the statue of Garuda, the Krishna Mandir and the Vishwanath Temple with the elephants in front.

Fig.2. View of the Patan Durbar Square, Lalitpur, looking south. From the left: Krisnhna Mandir Temple (Chayasim Deval), the Taleju Bell, the Harishankar Temple, King Yoga Narendra Malla’s Column, Narasimha Temple, Vishnu Temple, Char Narayan Temple, Garuda statue, the Krishna Mandir and the Vishvanath Temple. Taken by Joseph Gaye, 1888-1892. Albumen Print, 155 x 105 mm. British Library, Photo 1424/3(8).

Fig.3. Darbar Square, Patan, Nepal [after the 1934 earthquake]. Taken by J.A. Dunn, January 1934. Albumen Print, 83 x 111 mm. British Library, Photo 899/2(4).

Gaye captured a winding pathway on the eastern flank, leading up to Swayambhu, an ancient religious site of temples and shrines at the top of a hill in the Kathmandu Valley (fig.4). The photograph shows a pair of Buddha statues marking the beginning of the path, with small chaityas, or shrines, dotted along the route. A photograph (EAP838/1/1/5/154) taken approximately 30 years later from the Chitrakar collection by Dirgha Man and Ganesh Man Chitraker shows a stairway with refurbished Buddhas and chaityas at the entrance that has replaced the pathway. 

Fig.4. Steps up to Temples [Swayambhu Stupa, Kathmandu Valley]. Taken by Joseph Gaye, 1888-1892. Dry Plate Negative. British Library, Photo 1424/1(67).

 

Further reading:

British Library’s The Endangered Archives Programme

Gaye, Mary Margaret and Halverson, Doug, The Photography of Joseph Gaye: Nepal, India and Burma 1888-1899, (privately printed) Canada: Mary Margaret Gaye and Doug Halverson, 2023

Onta, Pratyoush. ‘A Suggestive History of the First Century of Photographic Consumption in Kathmandu’, Studies in Nepali History and Society, Vol. 3, No. 1 (June 1998), pp.181-212

Slusser, Mary Shepherd, Nepal Mandala: A Cultural Study of the Kathmandu Valley, Volume 1 Text, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982

Weise, Kai, ‘An outlook of Gaddhi Baithak’, The Himalayan Times, 2 April 2016 

 

By Susan M. Harris

Following the success of the Buddhism exhibition (October 2019 - February 2020) at the British Library, a new display of Buddhist manuscripts and block prints has recently been installed in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery.

“Sacred Texts” display case on Buddhism in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery in the British Library.

Buddhism, which originated in northern India in the 5th-6th century BC, is mainly concerned with universal liberation. The Buddha, born as Prince Siddhartha, renounced his worldly life to search for ways to end suffering. Through meditation and subsequently enlightenment he realised that the causes of all suffering are desire, ignorance and hatred. The Buddha’s teachings of the Noble Eightfold Path, or Middle Way, describe practices and morals of a follower that help to overcome the three causes of suffering and lead to liberation (nirvana). Buddhists believe that all actions have consequences resulting in karmic reward or retribution within the cycle of birth, death and rebirth (samsāra).

Devotees founded temples and monasteries and sponsored the dissemination and preservation of Buddhist teachings over the past 2,500 years. Buddhism has produced a wealth of philosophical and doctrinal literature  in numerous languages, and as the Buddha’s words spread across Asia and to the West, different schools like Theravāda, Mahayāna and Vajrayāna stressed particular aspects of the quest for liberation.

The Birth of the Buddha, India or Nepal, 1970s. Purchased from Barbara Browne in 2013. British Library, Or 16921/17

A Tibetan block print depicts with great attention to detail episodes from the legendary account around the birth of the Buddha. In the centre, Queen Māyādevī is shown giving birth to the Buddha-to-be whilst standing under a Sal tree and reaching overhead to hold on to a branch for support. On the lower right she is also shown asleep having the dream that announces her pregnancy. On the left, the newly born prince Siddhartha takes seven steps into each direction causing lotus flowers to spring from the ground with each step. The print is based on a set of 18th-century prints from Derge in Eastern Tibet.

Life of the Buddha, Burma, 1875. Purchased in 1988. British Library, Or 14405 

Scenes from the Life of the Buddha are a popular topic of illustrated Burmese parabaik manuscripts. This image from the Mālālaṅkāra vatthu shows the Kathina festival which signifies the end of Vassa, a three-month rainy season retreat for Buddhist monks. The festival that goes back to the lifetime of the Buddha is an occasion for the laity to bring donations, often food and robes, to the monks and to express dāna, or generosity. Dāna is seen as one of the main practices through which a layperson can gain merit and attain a fortunate rebirth.

Mahākāśyapa, the ‘foremost arhat in austerities’, China, 18th century. Purchased from Mrs Lisa Francis Butler in 1901. British Library, Or 6245

Arhat is a Sanskrit word indicating a noble person who has achieved spiritual awakening and liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Mahākāśyapa was one of the Buddha’s first disciples who became a great arhat and played a crucial role in spreading the Buddha’s teachings, or Dharma. He trained his body and mind by giving up worldly comforts. Here he is shown holding a flower, referring to an event in which he was the only one who understood the Buddha’s words during a service. He then received the Dharma from the Buddha and became a leading figure in Buddhism.

Illustration of Mañjuśrī with prayer and incantation, Dunhuang, China, around 10th century. Obtained by Aurel Stein during his second expedition to Central Asia, 1906-08, part-funded by the British Museum. British Library, Or.8210/P.20 

In Mahayāna Buddhism, Bodhisattvas play an important role as celestial enlightened beings who assist ordinary humans out of compassion. Mañjuśrī, the bodhisattva of wisdom, is depicted riding a lion and accompanied by two attendants, a man and a boy. The texts underneath both advocate devotion to the deity. Prints such as this one were commissioned by Buddhist believers as an act of faith and were used for devotional practice, reflecting the popularity of Mañjuśrī.

Pañcarakṣā (The five protections), Nepal, 1130-1150 AD. Purchased from James Singer in February 1981. British Library, Or 14000

The Pañcarakṣā is a collection of Sanskrit texts dedicated to the five Goddesses believed to be the personification of five protective spells (dhāraṇī) traditionally uttered by the Buddha himself. These texts deal with the power of each Goddess (and each spell) against various diseases, calamities and misfortunes and contain ritual invocations used for worship. Besides their textual value, manuscripts of the Pañcarakṣā also serve as amulets. The palm-leaf manuscript (fragment) shown above features illustrations of the Goddesses and is written in the early Nepalese script.

An Illustrated Guide to Mudrās, Japan, 1684. Acquired from Rev. A. Patton in 1906. British Library, 16015.a.25

The Japanese work depicted above, Shuinzu, contains depictions and explanations of the symbolic hand gestures, known in Sanskrit as mudrās, that are used in Buddhist rituals and iconography. The text describes the twelve principal mudrās of Shingon Buddhism, one of the leading Buddhist schools in Japan.

A volume from the Narthang Tenjur, Tibet, 1741-42. Donated to the India Office Library by the Government of India in 1904. 14310.a.RGYUD 1 

In the Tibetan Buddhist canon there are two primary collections of works: the Kanjur, the translated teachings of the Buddha, and the Tenjur, the translated commentaries. The volume on display is one of some 220 volumes of a Tenjur that was printed between 1741 and 1742 in Narthang. It is one of the most important printing houses in Central Tibet, located about 15 km west of the town of Shigatse. This volume opens the section of commentaries on Tantra that have been translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan.

Jātaka, the Buddha’s Birth Tales, Central Thailand, 1894. Purchased from Robert Stolper in 2005. British Library, Or 16101 

Jātaka tales recollecting the 547 previous lives of the Buddha are an important part of the Tipiṭaka, the Buddhist canon in the Pali language of the Theravāda school. The last ten Birth Tales, six of which are illustrated in the image above, highlight ten virtues of enlightened be-ings: compassion, good conduct, renunciation, wisdom, diligence, tolerance, honesty, preseverance, kindness, equanimity. They accompany Pali text passages in Khmer script written in gold ink. This folding book was originally commissioned by a couple, Nāi Am and Am Daeng-Di.

A Commentary on Higher Teachings. Northern Thailand, 1917. Donated by Doris Duke’s Southeast Asian Art Collection in 2004. British Library, Or 16079 

Commentaries written by followers and Buddhist scholars after the passing of the Buddha are an important source for practising Buddhists to better understand canonical scriptures. Shown above is a copy of the Saṅkhāra, a commentary on the Abhidharma-piṭaka or ‘Higher Teachings’ of the Buddha. The text, in the Shan language, emphasises that everything is subject to impermanence: birth, growth, decline, decay, and rebirth. The mind, citta, perceives impermanence as suffering. This manuscript was commissioned by Sarngjah and his wife Nang Lah as an offering to preserve the Buddha’s words.

The Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery showcases some of the greatest works from the Library’s literary, scientific, music, art and sacred texts collections. It is open to the public Monday to Sunday during the regular opening times of the Library. Entry is free for everyone.

Curators from Asian and African Collections 

The Chevening Fellowship hosted by the British Library’s Asian and African Collections Department from September 2022 to September 2023 has been completed successfully. The aim of this project was to research and catalogue manuscript textiles found in the Library’s Southeast Asian collections.


Display of manuscript textiles from the Southeast Asian collections, 6 September 2023

Over the past twelve months Chevening Fellow Noon Methaporn Singhanan assessed, described and photographed 120 manuscript textiles. The outcome is detailed catalogue descriptions, with photo documentation, and an extensive bibliography for further study. The metadata of the textiles will be added to existing manuscript records in the online catalogue in the coming weeks. As a final highlight of this project we organised a display of selected textiles for colleagues and external guests on 6 September 2023. During this event, Noon answered questions about the displayed items and her research. She also demonstrated how manuscript mats with bamboo sticks were made in northern Thailand, a tradition she has helped to revive in the past through her volunteer project at UNESCO prize-winning temple Wat Pongsanuk in Lampang.


Chevening Fellow Noon Methaporn Singhanan demonstrating how to make a manuscript mat with bamboo sticks

To summarise the findings from this project, Noon said that there were three important aspects that will help with her PhD research: 1) the diversity of materials originating from different places across the globe, 2) the different types of manuscript textiles she discovered, and 3) the importance of object comparison as a research method.

Diversity of materials
Quite unexpectedly, Noon found a large number of textiles and materials which did not originate from Southeast Asia, but from China, Japan, India, and the UK. Raw cotton used to produce fabrics in Britain was most likely sourced from American plantations and from India. For example, most of some 29 British-made wooden boxes (IO Pali 1-29) with kapok and velvet cushioning contain stunning Chinese silk tapestries in the style of Dragon Robes and silk ribbons that were repurposed to wrap around Burmese Buddhist manuscripts. These were given to Arthur Phayre, Commissioner of Burma 1862-7, by the King of Burma.


Wooden box with red velvet and kapok cushioning, containing a Burmese Buddhist palm leaf manuscript with two wrapping cloths cut to size from Chinese silk brocade, c. 1862-7 or earlier. British Library, IO Pali 29

A Burmese Kammavāca manuscript (Add MS 23939) from the late 18th or early 19th century was found to be wrapped with a stunning piece of Japanese silk brocade with a pattern of Chrysanthemums, plum blossoms and butterflies woven into yellow silk with gilded washi paper threads.

Another surprising find was a scrolled paper manuscript with a Buddhist text in Shan language from the first half of the 20th century (Or 15368), acquired in 1995 from Søren Egerod’s collection. Sewn on to the binding is a factory-made cotton cover printed with a leaf pattern, which may have been imported or made locally post-1920 in one of the emerging cotton mills in Burma. Attached at the rim is a synthetically dyed green felt ribbon, made from wool, a material that is unusual in the Shan manuscript tradition. Further testing will be necessary to establish the country of origin of the wool.

Noon also discovered a wrapper made up of several parts, including a stunning piece of batik cotton fabric with rose pattern on the outside, and checkered silk sewn together with a piece of cotton on the lining. This was custom-made for a Burmese Buddhist palm leaf manuscript dated 1869 (Or 11810).

The great variety of materials and techniques to make manuscript textiles is evidence of trade and exchange relations from the late 18th to the early 20th century. In some cases, a creation date is contained in the manuscript, and usually a date is included in the acquisition record of a manuscript, so that it is possible to estimate the approximate age of the textiles.

Types of manuscript textiles
The most common type of manuscript textile found in the Southeast Asian collections is the cloth wrapper, either custom-made to fit the size of the manuscript or sometimes made from re-purposed pieces, like for example shoulder cloths and tube-skirts in the Lao manuscript tradition (Or 16886). Noon found out that many Burmese manuscripts are wrapped with printed cotton fabrics which originated in the UK, but occasionally imported velvet is found, too. One Burmese shell book dated 1907 (Or 16052) contains pages made from fine silk and it is wrapped in a piece of cloth woven on the backstrap loom in Karen style. Some manuscripts from Thailand have wrappers made from imported fabrics like silk brocades from India or European printed cotton (Or 1044). A red silk brocade wrapper with a gold thread pattern (Or 5107) was made in India for a 19th-century royal Thai edition of the Tipitaka on palm leaves. A stamp on the red coloured cotton lining is in a Brahmic script (probably originating from north-west India).


Cloth wrapper and mat consisting of 84 coconut leaf stalks, yarn and cotton fabric made for a Burmese Buddhist manuscript dated 1856. British Library, Or 12645

Another frequently found type of manuscript wrapper is the wrapping mat produced from yarn or fabric that is reinforced with bamboo slats or stalks from coconut tree leaves. Occasionally, the cloth wrapper and mat could be combined, and such items were found in the Burmese collection. The example above (Or 12645) is a wrapper made from an imported printed cotton handkerchief, of UK origin made for the South Asian market, together with a locally custom-made mat consisting of 84 coconut leaf stalks intertwined with red and yellow cotton fabric. These two items were used to cover a Burmese Buddhist palm leaf manuscript dated 1856.

Generally, there are three techniques of making wrapping mats. One method often seen in the Lao and northern Thai manuscript traditions is to weave the mat on the loom, using cotton yarn for the warp and alternately cotton yarn and bamboo slats for the weft (Or 12401).


Hand-woven mat with 19 bamboo slats and factory-made hem made for ten northern Thai palm leaf bundles with Buddhist texts. Manuscripts dated 1827-74. British Library, Or 12401

Another technique to make wrapping mats is to connect the bamboo slats by wrapping cotton yarn, or occasionally wool yarn, around them; and by using yarns of different colours one can create beautiful symmetric diamond or zig-zag patterns (Or 16545). This method was widely used in Burma and northern Thailand.

A third method is to manually weave the mat using yarn, bamboo slats or coconut leaf stalks, and rectangular pieces of fabric to insert between the yarn and bamboo slats (Or 12645).

Mat made from knitting wool with 95 bamboo slats in a diamond-shaped symmetric pattern, for a Burmese Buddhist manuscript dated 1852. British Library, Or 16545

In the Shan manuscript tradition, the most common type of textile is the cloth cover. Scrolled paper books with text in Shan script are usually equipped with a cloth cover, either made from imported printed cotton or locally made cotton fabric that is sewn on to the stab-stitch binding. Occasionally, a ribbon is attached at the rim of the cloth cover to secure the scrolled manuscript. Noon found one exceptionally beautiful Shan scrolled manuscript from the 19th century adorned with a locally made plain white cotton cover that was painted by hand with a floral design in red, orange, yellow and blue tones (Or 16137).


Shan scrolled manuscript containing a Buddhist text (right), with a hand-painted cotton cover (left) sewn-on to the binding, 19th century. British Library, Or 16137

In the Thai, Burmese and Malay manuscript collections Noon found textile manuscript bags and envelopes, all of them made from imported fabrics. One such example is a manuscript bag for a Thai palm leaf manuscript, custom-made from imported printed cotton fabric (Or 15885). The factory-made outer layer has red, brown and white floral ornaments, whereas the lining was made from locally-made cream coloured cotton fabric. A rope to tie up the open side of the bag is decorated with small cotton tassels at its ends, and such tassels are attached to all four corners of the bag, too.


Manuscript bag for a palm leaf manuscript from Thailand, made from imported printed cotton, c. 1840-60. British Library, Or 15885

An envelope made from European damask silk originally came with a letter from Pangiran Adipati of Palembang, addressed to Stamford Raffles in Bengkulu in 1824 (MSS Eur D 742/1/61). The envelope is combined with a paper wrapper made from Dutch paper, with intricately cut ends at the back, made in the Malay tradition.


Yellow silk and paper wrapper addressed to Raffles from a letter from Pangiran Adipati of Palembang, made from European damask silk and Dutch paper, 1824. British Library, MSS Eur D 742/1/61

In the Burmese collection Noon found a large number of manuscript ribbons (sazigyo) which fulfil two purposes: 1) to wrap around palm leaf or Kammavaca manuscripts - the latter often consisting of loose leaves - in order to keep the leaves in order when the manuscript is stored, and 2) to add a dedicatory message from the donor which is woven into the ribbon. Sazigyo were usually made in the tablet-weaving technique from cotton, silk or hemp. These ribbons can be of extraordinary lengths of several metres, and in addition to the inscription decorations in form of sacred symbols, geometric forms, plants and animals can be found (Or 3665).


Burmese manuscript ribbon (sazigyo) made from hand-spun cotton yarn, with text and ornaments on a solid red background, 19th century. British Library, Or 3665

Object comparison
When researching the manuscript textiles, Noon realised that many questions remained unanswered, especially regarding the country of origin and creation dates. Therefore, she visited several other organisations in the UK, including the British Museum, the Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the Wellcome Collection, the John Rylands University Library in Manchester, Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, the National Archives at Kew and the Victoria and Albert Museum to see if there were similar items in these collections, possibly with recorded dates or detailed provenance records.

The method of object comparison proved useful to establish connections between some textile items and places of origin. During a visit to the John Rylands University Library in Manchester, Noon had the opportunity to see seven silk wrappers of exactly the same make as the British Library’s Or 5107. It is almost certain that they belonged to the same set of the Tipitaka thought to have been commissioned by King Rama III (r. 1824-51). The Mancunian acquisition record tells us that the Thai palm leaf manuscripts were donated by Pali scholar Thomas Rhys Davids in 1917.


Cotton wrapper with a butterfly and vine print on red background, lined with plain white cotton. Manchester 1874. British Library, Or 16673

During a visit to the National Archives in Kew Noon consulted numerous large volumes containing samples of textile designs registered by British companies in the 1870s-80s. With great excitement she found an exact match for a cloth wrapper made from a piece of imported printed cotton fabric with plain white hand-woven cotton lining in the British Library’s collection (Or 16673). It was made for a Burmese palm leaf manuscript with text on the Life of the Buddha, dated 1883. The fabric design was registered in 1874 by The Strines Printing Company in Manchester.


The moment of discovering a registered fabric design matching British Library Or 16673 at the National Archives in Kew.

Jana Igunma, Henry Ginsburg Curator for Thai, Lao and Cambodian Collections
Noon Methaporn Singhanan, Chevening Fellow at the British Library 2022-23