Brahmayu Sutta
බ්‍රහ්මායු සූත්‍රය

This is a palm leaf manuscript written in sinhala script. The text is a sutra entitled Brahmayu Sutta, which belongs to the ancient collections of Buddhist sacred scriptures. The Sutta collection primarily consists of narratives about or discourses by the Buddha or other important figures from early Buddhism, such as Brahmayu. It is divided into five main collections, and Brahmayu Sutta is discourse 91 of the second collection (Majjhima Nikāya).

The manuscript dates from the end of the 19th century or beginning of the 20th century. It is composed of 57 palm leaves held together by a cotton string of 4 strands between two painted wooden covers, of size 45x5.5cm. The text has wide margins and is justified. The first leaf has a short introductory text of three sentences. Then there are two long texts. The first one, 22 leaves long, the last leaf being blank, is the actual Sutta in Pali language. It is divided into sections which begin with ෴෴ and end with ෴ . Each section of the Sutta is followed by sentences of the Sutta in Pali separated by what looks like n . This part of the manuscript is written with seven lines per leaf side. The second text, 34 leaves long, is an explanation in Sinhalese of words and sentences of the Sutta in Pali, with eight lines per leaf side. Each text in Pali there starts with ෴ and end with a punctuation mark that looks like n . It is followed by an explanation in Sinhalese. The translation into English of Brahmayu Sutta is available here.

බ්‍රහ්මායු සූතෙ‍ත්‍ර
Click on one of the images to access the manuscript

In other words, the first long text is a series of :
෴෴ the Sutta in Pali ෴ text in Pali n text in Pali n , etc.
And the second text is a series of :
෴ text in Pali n explanation in Sinhalese n explanation in Sinhalese n explanation in Sinhalese n , etc.
The partially transcribed texts are available under the images of the individual leaves. As the transcription is a lengthy procedure, it will be continued when time permits.

The leaves are identified in the left margin of the recto by non-numerical characters. The two texts are numbered in an identical way, in other words both start with the first numbering letter. The numbering letters are shown here. A detailed explanation of the numbering system of palm leaves in Sinhala is available here.

I thank my sister Marie-Noëlle for giving me this manuscript. I gratefully acknowledge the help of Hasitha Chamikara Gunasinghe who identified the manuscript and provided detailed information about it.