Pali Manuscripts in Vientiane, Lao PDR

I pass along the following description from my wife --although I have been
to Laos 3 times, I have yet to see this collection myself (the National
Library was closed whenever I was there), and shall do so at first
opportunity:

> ...you'll be glad to know that I made a full tour
> of the National Library (also home to a Manuscript Preservation Project
> partly supported by the Germans, I think).  The main floor has about 3
> reading 'nooks' with bookshelves.  I was welcomed and wandered at will
> through the small space.  There are books in English, Lao, Russian, French
> ... It is not huge or impressive, but they're
> trying.  I asked the librarian by the front door if they had "Bali" and
> she said "Palm leaf", and pointed me upstairs.  Up I went, up lovely old
> wooden stairs, past decaying walls and dusty tomes, down a hallway of old
> French doors (most with locked chains keeping them shut).  Another
> administrator/librarian responded very positively to my request, and took
> me to a little (air conditioned!) room lined with wooden, glass-doored
> cabinets full of manuscripts -- each with a little paper i.d. tag dangling
> from it!  I made some inquiries about which ones were "Bali" and if it was
> "Lao Tham" (i.e. dhamma script), although the understanding of the lady
> librarian and the gentleman who later arrived (the "Head of the Manuscript
> Dept") was limited. It was utterly different from Bangkok's library.  They
> were very interested to hear that my husband studied "Bali", and asked me
> if I wanted to borrow any of the manuscripts!  They were happy to hear
> that you might come to study them, and they even allowed me to take
> pictures of a manuscript and the room!  My only faux-pas was not taking my
> shoes off when I entered the room, although it was truly not my fault --
> my earlier offer to doff my shoes at the foot of the stairs (where I saw a
> few pairs on a shelf) was refused by the downstairs librarian, and when I
> was leaving the room I apologised for my shoes (when I noticed that both
> staff members were barefoot), and the upstairs librarian indicated that it
> was fine, not to worry.


--
A saying of the Buddha from http://metta.lk/
Get your Dhamma Books from http://books.metta.lk/
Having slain mother and father and two brahmin kings, and having destroyed
the perilous path (hindrances), ungrieving goes the Brahmana (Arahant).
Random Dhammapada Verse 295