When a book Is not just a book

Form should enhance function, but there comes a point when form overtakes function.

The Kammavacca, or traditional Buddhist texts, were gorgeous, precious books: leaves of ivory, painted with gold and cinnabar, and stored in lacquered boxes inlaid with semi-precious stones.

Sometimes the leaves were strips of cloth cut from the robes of the king or eminent monks, which were then lacquered. Less exalted versions were made with just regular old cloth, but still lacquered and painted with cinnabar.

These texts were gifted to Buddhist monasteries by the families of boys ordained into the monkhood in Myanmar. They were bound with a special ribbon woven by ladies of rank with a prayer. What message could merit such treatment?

The leaves of the texts were inscribed with the code of behavior for (Theravadin) Buddhist monks. The presiding monk would read from these texts at ordination and purification ceremonies, to remind all the other monks of their sacred duties.

Given the effort that went into beautifying these texts, it's probably safe to say that they didn't function so much as tools of learning as symbols of prestige.

Indeed, the popularity of the practice of gifting these texts was closely tied to the power held by the monkhood at any given moment in history.

These were not well-thumbed textbooks, pored over and critically engaged with by young monks. Nor were these books stashed away carelessly in a student's cubby.

They were carefully stored in highly decorated cases, their use controlled and directed by the senior monks.

In fact, studies of pedagogy in monasteries show that these texts played a marginal role in the actual education of the young monks.

Things are not so different in our time, where families of wealthy students bequeath science centres and art collections to universities. The frequency of such grand bequests has risen along with the the one-percent's share of wealth and the prestige of certain centres of learning. But what is the degree of correlation between state-of-the-art learning facilities and actual learning itself? And between gilded texts and a greater understanding of the Buddha's wisdom?

Sources:

Noel Singer in Arts of Asia, May-Jun 1993.

Jeffery Samuels in "Toward an Action-Oriented Pedagogy: Buddhist Texts and Monastic Education in Contemporary Sri Lanka," Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 2004.

Daniel Veidlinger in "When a Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures:Mahayana Influence on Theravada Attitudes towards Writing," Numen, 2006.