Jaargang 4, nummer 3 (mei 2004)

In de toonkast

Catalogue of Lepcha Manuscripts in the Van Manen Collection

Heleen Plaisier

Kern Institute Miscellanea 11 (2003)
(260 pages, 72 photographs)

ISBN 90-9017656-X
ISSN 0924-0861 volume 11

This catalogue offers a detailed description of the 182 Lepcha manuscripts in the Van Manen Collection, presently kept in the library of the Kern Institute of Leiden University.

The endangered Lepcha language is spoken in Sikkim and Darjeeling district in West Bengal of India, in the Ilam disctrict of Nepal and in a small enclave in south-western Bhutan, altogether by upwards of 50,000 people. Lepcha is unmistakably a member of the Tibeto-Burman language group, but its exact position within the language group is still an open question. Lepcha is considered to be one of the aboriginal languages of the area in which it is spoken. Unlike most other tribal languages of the Himalayas, the Lepcha people have their own indigenous script.

The described collection of manuscripts written in the Lepcha language is by far the largest collection of its kind in the world. By identifying the manuscripts in this collection, and by describing both their contents and their external features, the catalogue hopes to make this important collection accessible to the public.

The catalogue contains much information that was hitherto unknown or scattered, and it is hoped that, with this book, most of the information necessary for further studies in the field for Lepcha manuscripts is finally brought together.

The catalogue is organised in three parts, the first of which discusses the native Lepcha orthography. The second part describes the manuscripts, and opens with a brief introduction to the history of Lepcha literature and a description of the contents of the different texts in the collection, followed by a physical description of all Lepcha manuscripts and related items in the Van Manen Collection. In the third and final part, the read will find reference to additional works in Lepcha and to collections of Lepcha manuscripts in London, Vienna and Gangtok.

http://lepcha.info