 I'm very happy to be able to introduce Tom Contia to us tonight. It turns out this is Contia's first time in London, and I'm very happy to be able to be a part of the first time in London and a first visit to the British Museum. And unfortunately, not to the Southeast Asia collections, but to the South Asian collections today. So it's a real pleasure for us to be able to host a Khmer scholar, Cambodian study Contia probably does not need an introduction for most of you. She is, I will remember last to give you a brief one. She completed an MA, well, the bachelor's degree in Phnom Penh at the University of Fine Arts University of Phnom Penh and then an MA in Bokeya and then a Ph.D. at the University of Paris. She works specifically, as I'm sure most of you know, on on ancient Khmer epigraphy, ancient Khmer language, and it's in particular relationship to Sanskrit and the incorporation of Sanskrit, Sanskrit terminology, Sanskrit attended concepts, the sort of thing. So tonight we'll be getting a taste of that, as I understand it, working specifically on questions of education in ancient Cambodia and the Sanskrit route into that. And no doubt the Sanskrit nature of that in many ways. So, yes, please, please join me in welcoming Contia tonight and we will, I understand that Contia will be speaking for about 45 minutes or so. And then we'll have an open question and answer session. So thank you, thank you. So thank you very much, Professor Ashleigh Thompson and good evening, everyone. So I'd like to sincerely thank Swas for inviting me to give a talk today. And thank you for all of you for coming. I'll try to make my presentation as interesting as possible. I'm going to talk about Sanskritic education in ancient Cambodia. By Sanskritic, I mean what is related to the typical civilisation of Sanskrit texts and expressions. It is important to recall that Cambodia or Cambodia dish is one of the ancient states which had written documents in Sanskrit and they form a world which Sharon Pollock calls Sanskrit cosmopolise. It covers mainly South Asia and Southeast Asia. In this part of the world from the first century to the 14th century, Sanskrit was the language of religious scriptures, philosophical treatises and ritual handbooks as well as instruction menus on politics, warfare, social organisation and many aspects of cultivated living. Because of the vast literature written in Sanskrit, the language became a Sharon Pollock remark and essential component of power in the Cambodia dish like anywhere else in the Sanskrit cosmopolise. So, you can see, I don't need to tell you because you can't recognise this part. But I cannot see clearly myself. But at least this word we mean by Sanskrit cosmopolise. Oh, sorry, don't forget Indonesia, Java and all the rest. So, inscriptions from ancient Cambodia are important sources to reconstruct the history of the country. Now, about 1,400 inscriptions have been invented and written between the 6th and 14th century of the common era, they are found in the present day Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, as you can see on the map. And they are known either by their provenance or their K number. This map shows the number of inscriptions found in 50 provinces of the four countries. As far as language is concerned, the inscriptions can be classified into three main categories. Inscriptions in Sanskrit, inscriptions in Old Khmer and inscriptions in Sanskrit and Old Khmer. Inscriptions are mostly on stone and found in temples. Out of the 1,400 texts, about 70 inscriptions which contain names and names of literary works and also the information related to education are written in my study. Epigraphy from ancient Cambodia are exploited, actually, in order to understand the history of statecraft, religion and so forth. Yet the Sanskrit language and the Sanskritic sciences which nourish the religion, art, etc., seem to be insufficiently studied. In other words, we have paid a lot of attention to the results of the sensitization of Kambu Yadish but not the process. The civilization of the kingdom, Kambu Yadish, would not have been survived from 6th to the 14th century without a firm tradition of transmission of knowledge or a well-systematized education, systemized education, sorry. Our aim is to identify what type of knowledge it was and examine how knowledge was transmitted from one generation to another. As already mentioned in the previous slide, about 70 inscriptions are our sources. The information related to education is rare because epigraphy is intended to record eulogy and genealogy of kings and elites, detail of religion endowments such as donation of land, servants, etc. But in order to get the information which can be useful for our research on education, we have to read between the line and explore also the archeological findings. It is important to notice also that our scope of study can reach only the formal type of education. And since our data comes mainly from Sanskrit inscriptions and Khmer inscriptions, which have a lot of Sanskrit loanwords, so the formal education was Sanskrit oriented or Sanskrit-themed. In my lecture, we are going to do four things. One, names of textbooks will be presented. And two, the Sanskrit term ashrama, which is usually translated into English as hermitage and the expression pustaka ashrama, book hermitage literally, will be reexamined. And three, the tradition of knowledge transmission from teachers to students and among family members will be discussed. Last four, number four, we will explore how and to what extent the Hindu model of education with Sanskrit as its pillar was localized in ancient Cambodia. We will do this with special reference to the medium language of the teaching. And some of you may notice that the order is different from the one I put in my abstract. I'm sorry for the change, but I believe that the new order will make my talk more comprehensible. So now we come to the first point, names of textbooks. In epigraphy, a learned person was often qualified as he who has crossed the ocean of innumerable sciences or the master of all sciences or the recipient of diverse sciences. The Sanskrit term for science is shak and derived from the verb-route shak to teach. It means literally a means of teaching. It conveys indeed the same meaning as the German term leer text. Literally in English, it is teaching text. Or we can call textbook. And what were the textbooks of the Khmer people that we are going to see soon in the next few slides. Sanskrit is known to have been used during the period from 1500 BC to around 1300 of the Common Era and the body of Sanskrit literature and compasses which tradition of scientific, technical, philosophical and religious text. Text names which you are familiar with such as Veda, Upanishad, Mahabharata, Ramayana and so forth have been composed in Sanskrit. Here I select only the main scriptures and cretises which have connection with Cambodia. As you can see, we have Rig Veda, Getua Veda, you know, all the four Veda and Brahmana, Jong, Haranyaka, Jong and Upanishad, Jong. Dhammasutra, Ashtadyayi for grammar and the two ethics, Mahabharata and Ramayana and very important, the Arthashastra. Next, Mahabharata, Manusmiti and also the Purana, Jong, especially Vayu, Vishnu and Matsya. And also we have the Meditian Science Textbook that's called Arjuna Veda and Surya Tinhanda in Astrology and the last, we have some architecture for architecture. So in the Sanskrit inscription from Cambodia, names of the tithis and the tithis were hinted in the geologistic words and philosophical or religious text in the sense of invocation. The Khmer inscriptions on the other hand, record fewer names of tithis in the places of elites or in the juridical context. Here, the Sanskrit inscription of pre-Yongkorean and Angkorian periods provide considerable information of intellectual quality of protagonist of the main people. The standard 20 of the inscriptions from Bantie Sri, K842 for instance, informs us that an eminent servant namely Yajna Varaha had a good comment of Yoga philosophy, Vaisesika philosophy. Samkhya philosophy and Nyaya philosophy as well as the Buddhism, the medicine, the music and the astrology. So here I just give you a good example where in one stanza, we can have a lot of a lot of names of Shastras or Sciences or scriptures. So all together, according to the preliminary results of our survey, a dozen of names of Sciences or scriptures is known from pre-Yongkorean Prasasthi. And in Angkorian time, the number rises up to about 50. Moreover, if we consider the Sciences and scriptures which are not directly mentioned but are alluded to in the Sanskrit inscription from Cambodia, we have to add about 20 more names of scriptures and a dozen names of authors or founders of literary works or doctrines. It is probable that we overlook some inscriptions in Sanskrit which make reference to religious or philosophical texts or other forms of literature. You know, the indexes which help us to find the names of Sciences or scriptures vary from one inscription to another. In some cases, the indexes are relatively weak whereas in some others, they appear to be convincing. The stanza 4 of the inscription of the Vietton style K359 of the 7th century, for instance, uses the word Purana like that in singular form. And this induces us to take it for the Vayu Purana which is the oldest text of the Purana genre. Now, I just load you with all the names of the Sciences. The about 17 names of scriptures and, you know, Sciences in alphabetical order, Sanskrit alphabetical order. And they are mentioned explicitly and implicitly in Sanskrit and Thai inscriptions. And the Sciences and scriptures are among the fundamental texts of the Sanskrit literature which consists of scientific, technical, philosophical and religious texts. If we just want to summarize that. So here, they can be grouped in the following fields. You know, it is by basing on these Sciences that the Khmer kings could manage their politics. The poets could compose their inscriptions of high quality and then the astrologers could calculate time. The architects could build temples and priests could conduct their rituals. So we can, how to say, just focus on six points, you know, philosophy and religion, statecraft, art, which cover architecture, music, dance and property, and then medicine and astronomy, astrology and mathematics. The last is a linguistic, especially grammar. And here, they are among the names of the scriptures, the grammar, the juridic called Tweeties, called Dharmashastra, the four Vedas, the epic Mahabharata and Ramayana. The Shaiva scriptures and the texts of Purana are the most frequently cited in the inscriptions. And they are probably the most common text books which were passed down from pre-Yangkorian to Angkorian time. You know, among the 70 scriptures, we can see very often these texts. So now I move to the second point of my presentation about two terms, Ashrama and Pistata Ashrama. Besides the text book, which were religious-oriented, the epigraphy also informs that schools were located in Ashrama. In Sanskrit, Ashrama has two main meanings. One is a hermitage and two is a stage of a religious life of Brahman. There are more than 300 occurrences of the term Ashrama in about 100 inscriptions from ancient Cambodia. In Cambodian epigraphy, mostly the first meaning is referred to. In his dictionary, Philip Jenner sticks to the literal meaning of the term as hermitage by giving at the same time three functions of the Ashrama. One, hermitage as the residence of clerics. Two, hermitage as the seat of religious order. And three, hermitage as the institution of learning, that means school or college, just like we have in the present and in modern times. The three functions remind us of those already mentioned in the Sauru school's groundbreaking article entitled Ashrama Dong Long Siang Kong Bosch, published in 2002. In the article, she emphasizes the similarity between an Ashrama in the Angkor period and a Wat or Buddhist monastery in the post-Angkorian period as a place of worship, hospitality and education. She divides Ashrama into two types. One is the individual Ashrama and two is another one, the communal Ashrama. Contrary to the individual Ashrama, which was for retreat from the material world, the communal Ashrama was supposed to be a residence of many teachers and students, a kind of college. And she adds that the individual Ashrama appeared in the pre-Angkorian inscriptions, whereas the college like Ashrama was known only in the Angkorian time, especially under the reign of King Jasho Varaman of late 9th century. And this king is very important for the study of the education because he established 100 Ashramas, you know, he alone, only in his reign, one reign alone, he established the 100 Ashramas across the kingdom. And four of his Ashramas were in the city and they were called Vaisnava Ashrama, Saugata Ashrama, Maheshvara Ashrama and Brahmana Ashrama. They are called according to the sect, the religious sect, like for Vaisnava Ashrama that is dedicated to Lord Vishnu and Saugata Ashrama for the Buddha. And the last two, Maheshvara Ashrama and Brahmana Ashrama, they were for Shiva, for the devotees of Shiva. So a lot has been known about Ashrama from Saagru school article and other recent researches. Now what I would like to do is to add two points to the scholarship. One is that Ashrama were places of learning but not all the places of learning were called Ashrama. And two, Ashrama played a crucial role in the production of written texts, you know, inscriptions and manuscripts without which we would not how to say have means to know the history of ancient Cambodia. So these texts are very important. And Ashrama played a very important role, the crucial role in that. There were colleges at that time which were named with Sanskrit words other than Ashrama, like I gave you the example of the Ashrama of Yashovaraman. They were called Vaisnava Ashrama, Saugata Ashrama, that means the name ends with Ashrama. But there were many other Ashramas which got the name without the term Ashrama. And they were with some names which, some words, which mean more or less a both or dwelling place. Like here we have Nivast, for example, Bhadreswara Nivast and also the word for the name ends with Ava, Rudrava, for example, and Alaya, Yogishwara Alaya, and also Pat in Sankranta Pat and last Vihara, like in Raja Vihara. So there were also names of colleges which had the same name and which were named after the main divinity of the temples. The example I give here is Sri Guwana Maheshwara which is identified as the Banti Israel temple in the present day Kimri province of Cambodia. And another type is the Ashrama or the College which did not have their names recorded in inscriptions. So here we have, for example, Kathakna which was, I could imagine that maybe one of the biggest Ashramas and the most active Ashrama ever in the history of Cambodia. But we could not find the ancient name of this Ashrama, unfortunately. So we just call it by the present day name Kathakna. And let's see this one. It is also important, Raja Vihara. Among all the Ashamas, Raja Vihara seems to be also the most important and the biggest. It is identified to be the temple of Taprong in Angkor complex and it was specialized in medicine. There were, according to the Stela, the foundation Stela of the temple, there were 439 religious men, or Sanskrit term Dharma Dharina and 970 students, Abhije 3 Vasinah, living in the temple premises. They worked under the supervision of a professor called Abjha Pakka. So, you know, at that time, at least 1,410 people lived in the temple and depended on the endowment of royal treasure and other sources. I don't know, I don't know how many students in Suas but in the Ashama, the college of Taprong temple, there were 1,410. Ashama were active in the production of written documents in durable and perishable materials. Poets and scribes were trained there, epigraphs and manuscripts were produced there as well. From the beginning of its history, Cambodia showed much interest in scripts which were brought from the Indian subcontinent. King Jasho Varaman of the late 9th century and his great-grandson Yajna Varaha of the 2nd half of the 10th century, for instance, were experts in scripts. We learn from the Stela of the Ashama of King Jasho Varaman that each of his Ashama employed two scribes and two librarians. You know, while dedicating themselves to writing, the Khmer people seemed to turn against the traditional Indian, especially the Brahmanic culture which gave priority to the spoken rather than the written word. And the culture is best explained by the proverb in Sanskrit. Pustakasam Pustakasatuyavidya parahasagatamthanam karyakale samutpane nasavidya nathathanam Meaning knowledge is not called knowledge when it is only in books. And money is not money when it is in the hands of others. So you know that the traditional Indian thought is like that. So you have to put everything in your head and also in your mouth whenever you want to use it, you decide it. But us in Cambodia, we had the tendency to write because we cannot, how to say, see knowledge abstract like that. So we have to see the book as the symbol of knowledge, something symbolic. So to Khmer people, writing was a, I mean, a prestigious act and copying of sacred texts and donation of manuscripts to temples were often mentioned in inscriptions. Dominic Goodall in his article published in 2017 draws our attention to the inscription of the content which we saw just now also. K359, very early 7th century. As the earliest example of the nation of physical books or Pustaka, the Sanskrit term, to a temple. And he also notes that the Indian allusions to the copying of specific texts or to the maintenance of manuscripts of them appear not only to be very rare but also to date from some centuries later than this 7th century Cambodian inscription. So the attitude towards writing made a lot of difference. The books were treated differently from the Indic world. I mean, in Cambodia, they were treated differently from the Indic world. And we are going to see this in the next section about Pustaka Srama. Here, I would like just to underline that the scientists mentioned about were known in Cambodia not only as something abstract or intangible but, you know, as something which has a physical representation or tangible. So we have some examples here on body lifts and sculptures. Here you have a beautiful Locke Shvara with 10 arms from Bantiechma temple, late 12th, early 13th century. And the manuscript will be one of his hands here. Second example also a Locke Shvara from each gate of Angkor Thong. The same period, late 12th, early 13th century. And you can even see, you know, the manuscript was like a band of palm leaves. Not only one page but there are many. The same here. But it is a female community from Bantiechma, but of the same period. Here we have one from, as you can see, Bantiemenche province and earlier than the previous exam post. This is of early 11th century. And on the same boundary post, there were also a female community, Praknyaparamita. So there were Locke Shvara and I put Praknyaparamita with question mark because it's maybe some other communities. And we have some small body lifts on temples which I don't know whether to take them up with representation of manuscripts. Here you can see the first picture. It is from Phnom Rho in Thailand. And this one from Baiyuan temple. And this can be in Bakuun because I have not checked yet. I just published from a publication. Here are some more photos. So from the shape of the manuscripts, we assume that they were written on palm leaves tied together in bundles rather than on other materials. You know, according to epigraphical and Chinese sources, there were two types of materials used in ancient times. The blackened deer skin leather and palm leaves. And here I'd like to show you some photos of manuscripts in contemporary Cambodia. And you can see some similarity with the presentation in the 11th century or 12th century photos you see in the statues you just seen. So although the history of materials used for writing in Cambodia is to be studied in details, I can say that the techniques of the production of the palm leaf manuscripts today are to some extent inherited from those of the time of King Yasho Varma, at least. Now we come to Pustaka Sama, the place. You know, we learn from the epigraphy that the books of Pustaka were kept in libraries and the library were called Pustaka Sama. And the library, we also know that they were in the temple premises. And actually there were two 10th century Sanskrit inscriptions, pay 9.58 from Prasad Kukcho, and pay 3.55 from Prasad Kna, which record that a certain Hiranyaruchi established a Pustaka Sama. Here are two photos of the building, which can be identified as the Pustaka Sama, because on one of the door frames, on one of the door frames, the inscriptions just say, here is the library, Pustaka Sama. In the second literature, the term library or in French, Bibliothèque is systematically used to refer to the annexed buildings, which are located to the east of the towers and open to the west. For example, on the plan of temple of Preco, this one, you can see here a so-called library at the southeast corner. And it is a small building in brick with holes on the walls, similar to that of Prasad Kna, which we just saw. Unlike the case of Prasad Kna, which has an inscription on the door frame to state that it was called Pustaka Sama, the library of Preco is called like that, without a strong basis. So, a doubt. We have to question this. It is interesting that the term asama in the expression Pustaka Sama was used to refer to a particular annexed building of the temple, not to the temple as the whole. And that building was reserved for books, because we have the word Pustaka, books. But we don't know its exact function. I mean the function of the shrine, the structure. Was it a resting place of books as translated by Dominic Godot? Although this translation is safer than the library, it does not explain more about how the books were treated inside. And researchers usually think that the holes in the walls were conceived for light and ventilation. Some assume that cows of fire were practiced there. Since we have no basis to exclude the hypothesis that the fire ritual is in that library building, so we suppose that there were books and fire rituals. But there was not all. There were more. In the case of Preco temple, we also have the freeze of 9 divinities or 9 planets on the eastern wall of the building. Here, it was placed about 20 cm higher than the floor level. But in the photo, the floor is hipped up to the extent that we hardly see the freeze. Although it is in bad condition, the traces are clear enough to confirm the existence of the 9 planets. We wonder if the books in the building were there to be worshipped along with the divinities by the presence of the fire. I suggest that a kind of book ritual was practiced in ancient Cambodia to take place in that building. And taking into consideration that the type of Pustakasama building was very rare, not to say unknown in South Asia, and that writing was very much honored in Cambodia. So the count of books was not impossible. There may be more objects than books, fire rituals and the 9 divinities. We hope to learn more about this in the forthcoming article by two Indian scholars, Swati Chamburgha and Shivani Kapoor. So now I come to the third point, the tradition of knowledge transmission. The inscriptions from ancient Cambodia or Kampu Yadesh, counting from the reign of King Guna Varman, late 5th, early 6th century to King Jaya Varman Parameswara, 14th century, mentioned a considerable number of scholars. And the majority of scholars were elites, they could be divided into four groups as follows. One, three religious people, two kings and queens. Three are the members of the royal family and four officers in royal court. And I give you each for each group some names, some people like for religious people you can see Vidya Visesha, Siva Thong and kings and queens, you can quote King Jaya Varman, the king Jaya Raj Nehmi. And for other members you have Lord Goswami, son-in-law of King Jaya Varman. And for officers in royal court you know Madhya Visas, a woman Janapada also a woman. The high quality of the inscriptions as well as the archeological vestige suggests that the Khmer have certainly learned the Sanskrit language and the sciences with competent professors and in family or Kula in Sanskrit, the term in Sanskrit. Kula can mean family and house. In Cambodian epigraphy, two important expressions are coined with the term Kula. We have Kula Patti and Kula Vidya. Kula Patti has many synonyms such as Kula Jaksha, master of religious community or abode and Kula Vidya signs of family. In the context of Asama of Yasha Varman, Kula Patti was the head of the scholars in the Asama. I understand the expression Kula Vidya signs of family as knowledge imparted from father to son and young members of the family. For example, Simha was one of the learned Brahmins under the reign of King Jaya Varman I and he was a doctor of Vidya. It seems that his medical knowledge was transmitted from his father. We know that he had two great grand uncles who were also doctors or physicians in the court of King Rudra Varman 514 to 515. So that was a family of doctors. Kula or family could also take its large sense as a big spiritual king. Kula Vidya may refer to the sciences transmitted from master to disciples of a college like here. She was Soma, constituted an exemplary knowledge transmission line of Varanpara, we call Varanpara in Sanskrit. She was a cousin of King Jaya Varman II and royal priestess of King Indra Varman and from his childhood he served scholars before becoming a disciple of Bhagavad Rudra who was the recipient of all sciences and may be a disciple of a renown Indian philosopher Shankaracharya of 8th and early 9th century. Taking into consideration their death we have to take this in figurative sense. That means either Shankaracharya was not the direct teacher of Bhagavad Rudra or there was another Shankaracharya so I put a question mark here and Soma had Vama Shiva as student. He became also a priest of Hottar type, there were many types of priests so he was a Hottar of King Indra Varman and he was also the teacher of the young prince Yasho Varman who later on became the king Yasho Varman and in his turn Vama Shiva transmitted his knowledge to Nandika Acharya, a rigorous ascetic who also served in the court of King Indra Varman as a priest of Acharya type. Nandika Acharya became later on the chief of all the Acharyas in the center of King Yasho Varman. So the Purampara can be represented like what you see on the slide and this king, the last member King Yasho Varman does not seem to be engaged in any teaching task in Asama but his 100th Asama project contributed a lot to the development of Sanskrit culture in Cambodia and his reign is a watershed in the history of Sanskrit scholarship in Cambodia which reaches its peak in the reign of King Rajendra Varman 944-968. The Sanskrit inscription from Prayru Temple composed in 961 which excels even the Sanskrit inscription in the India itself is to be considered as the result of the effort made by King Yasho Varman about half a century earlier. So this great king for the Sanskrit scholarship. Now I come to the last point localization of Sanskrit education and I focus on your medium language. We have mentioned earlier that there were some characteristics of Cambodian education such as the tendency towards writing and the kind of book culture in the Pustaka Asama in this section of the lecture I am going to raise only two more points one is the name of text having the Khmer prefix brah and the second one the Khmer as medium language. Among the common text book presented in the first half of the lecture hand names of the Sanskrit and scriptures are mentioned in a dozen of Khmer inscriptions which are dated to the table of 10th and 12th century. They are called Guya, Dharma Shastra, Nayotara, Vinashika, Vishnudharma, Vyakaran, Shiksha, Srirashcheda, Samoha and Siddhanta. The mention of the names of the sciences and scriptures in Khmer inscriptions may suggest that they were popular than those which appear only the Sanskrit texts. Being used by the Khmer people, the sciences have adopted some aspects of Khmerness and one of the aspects is the prefix brah meaning divine or royal being or object occurring as a head word of a noun phrase. In other words, the term is used in front of lexical elements to turn them into sacred elements. It is used for car objects like brah go, sacred house, brah dakshina, brah tum and brah shatna have the translation on the slide. And the important thing is that it is also used with names of scriptures such as brah Vishnudharma and brah Dharma Shastra. Reciting the sacred juridical texts, Dharma Shastra was a common practice in the juridical system of the kingdom. Hence the frequent occurrence of the expressions by comparing the context in which the name Dharma Shastra appears with and without the prefix brah I come to the conclusion that the brah Dharma Shastra was perhaps a certain version of the precise which was circulated in Cambodia. And since it was decided by the court of justice for public so the brah Dharma Shastra may be a Khmer version of the Dharma Shastra originally in Sanskrit. One cannot deny the existence of manuscripts in Khmer language which were composed for the sake of local people and students especially the beginners although the composition has disappeared since the use of the term brah to indicate a name of a scripture or three types reminds us of the use of the Sanskrit term Sri. According to Muneer William the word Sri means sacred holy is frequently used as an honorific prefix to the names of divinities the names of eminent persons as well as the name of celebrated works and sacred objects. For example here we have Sri Bhagavad Gita the term Sri is added to the name of the book Bhagavad Gita. The relation between the Khmer term brah with the Sanskrit word Sri is underlined by Philip Jenner stating that the Khmer term is perhaps a calc in Sanskrit Sri that is how to say translation the imitation from Sanskrit Sri the word calc here may refer to the notion which the term brah borrows from the word Sri in Sanskrit both the terms brah and Sri designates the sacredness of the divinity human being objects and textual conversations in inscriptions composed between 10th to 12th century mentioned two Khmer terms barian to teach or rian to study and the Khmer was the mother tongue of the students and maybe also of the teachers so the teaching of the Sanskrit text was probably in the vernacular language Khmer the sacred language from India was adopted by the Khmer as written language or language of epigraphy and manuscripts and this language, Sanskrit remained a written language during the whole existence in the ancient Cambodia. The disciples whose knowledge of Sanskrit was not as good as that of their masters would learn the Sanskrit text with the help of a globe or an explanation in their mother tongue so the situation was similar to the education of the Buddhist canonic texts in Pali of the post-ongolian period 15th to 18th century translations and commentaries in the vernacular language called samrai were known in that period. Let's consider a description of teaching environment as evidence from a Sanskrit inscription from Prasad Khana K 61 late 10th early 11th century it is about classes of a professor namely Shal or Jayendra Pandit in many ashrama he said much higher than his students who were most probably seated on the ground he also taught all sciences to students and organized also discussion sessions with them his explanation was so good that the student took him as the author of the books outside classrooms he received his learned colleagues to answer their questions moreover relatives of students invited him in order to ask for clarifications of some passages in some scriptures he could explain clearly even the books that he had not read so the inscription I mean this passage of the inscription is very important because it shed light on the verbal contact in academic milieu I may be wrong to say that the teacher's discussion explanation answers and clarifications were in Khmer everyday life of the people and that Khmer was the mother tongue of those people of the teachers and his entourage but you know to imagine that the medium language of the teaching was Sanskrit sounds just more groundless to me and still stick to the idea that the medium language was Khmer now to sum up we have an answer to what where, who and how the Sanskritic knowledge was imparted in the Khmer world the Khmer people participated actively in the Sanskritization movement of their time and apparently did not hesitate to adapt what they had picked up from the Indic world to their needs and tastes the number of sciences and scriptures shows that the Sanskrit culture was deep rooted in Cambodia to get the whole picture of the Sanskrit education seems impossible because some information such as the content of the palm leaf manuscripts have lost, so many pieces of the puzzle have been lost I have found two pieces of the puzzle and continue to search for more indeed I am working with two Cambodian colleagues Dr. Chai Merti and Dr. Leng Pirum to publish a book chapter on this subject soon hopefully next year I will end my presentation with this photo of Rishi in Uncle Time many of them were polyvalent teachers and they mastered religious scriptures political science and martial arts among other scientists, they were the pillars of their education in ancient times they were famous even today any Cambodian would describe Rishi or Thaisai in Khmer language as an old hermit living in his ashrama in the forest with a servant and then he taught the various sciences to young princess who came all the way from the city to his ashrama like if you know the story of Rama Yana, Rama he went to learn the sciences from his guru Vishwamitra so thank you very much for your kind attention and for bearing my English there are of course many shortcomings in my lecture and suggestions and corrections are most welcome so please tell me now or write to me later on by this email so thank you very much thank you very much we have time for questions yes please what is the evidence for that and secondly his son Jaya Varma the 5th actually constructed many Buddhist ashrama according to the what's-it-all inscription so that presumably was maintaining this high level of knowledge and his son Jaya Varma the 5th actually constructed maintaining this high level yes and then the victory always marty victory always talked about Sanskrit being revived under Jaya Varma the 7th sorry with his wife the famous Sanskrit is writing many scriptures two sons writing scripture but victory says it was very much a revival between Rajivarma Jaya Varma so in the Mahidara period sorry Varma the 1st and Udayaditya Varma there was less evidence of that okay so that's all yes thank you very much for the question and it is very important it's just like if you want to know the whole how to say the important times in the ashrama culture as I think I have well I don't remember which slide but we talk about the article by so she emphasizes she noticed one important point that there were two ashrama one individual ashrama where one Rishi he lived he did his asceticism alone like that he wanted to how to say take retreat from the world but that was in the Angkorian time so we had only the individual ashrama in Angkorian time and those ashrama were not very useful or very active for the knowledge transmitting but only in the reign of King Yasho Varman that is late 9th century that we had his booming project of ashrama the 100th ashrama that somehow it pushed very far the culture Sanskrit culture in Cambodia like you mentioned in the reign of King Rajendra Varman how to say evidence from inscriptions from what he told that also we had a lot of how to say examples and yes many existence we know the existence of many ashrama and after Rajendra Varman then we had Jai Varman also he was very keen on Sanskrit learning but then later on during the reign of the successors of Jai Varman we did not get any good inscriptions or the inscriptions which tell about the Sanskrit scholarship so we assumed that there was somehow in the learning among the Khmer people and you also mentioned that only in the reign of Jai Varman the 7th you know somehow it was how to say for the political reason also then this King he started again to do Sanskrit because he wanted to show not only to give message to the people in Cambodia but to show also the neighboring states Sanskrit at that time was like English now that was the movement to how to say to become powerful through the inscriptions because the more you write then the more people know you so that's how I see things maybe in some ways a related question I was very interested in the distinction you are making between the figurative and the ritual you spoke about it in relationship first to the Parampara yes right so maybe rather than saying rather than interpreting the textual evidence to demonstrate to us that there's an actual Guru and an actual disciple but it's more the notion of following this almost mythical nonetheless historic Guru so in the terms of the Parampara but also in terms of the book it seems to me that's a useful distinction for understanding something that's going on between learning and the book as a sacred object of veneration and in your art historical many of your art historical examples this for example we would be potentially looking not at a representation of learning per se as we might think about but as a representation of the attribute the book as a sacred object which is an attribute and which is more in the order of the symbolic than on the order of learning so I'm wondering what evidence we track to think about that distinction so even in let's go to where we've got the Kushta Kashrama a resting place for books what would allow us there to think of this as a side of learning as opposed to a side of veneration of an object which is a book yes yes and here thank you very much for your remarks and also your ideas I do agree that we have very how to say weak proof or very weak pieces of evidence very small information to really how to say from there we can do or proof show a good picture of the education but you how to say notice rightly that the how to say the world they live in the past was somehow dominated by the religious concern I mean everything was for God any God just I think the similar situation was like in Europe until you know 15 or 16th century that you just how to say I mean the education or the sciences was somehow related to the religion I mean you cannot split the two and that how to say the Pustakasama was a place for learning or for keeping books I mean for making purpose rather than for a cult that is indeed what I'm trying to say you know even though they call it Pustakasama which you know immediately just make us the Sanskrit think that okay it is the library but it may be not that is I'm trying to but still I really need more proof to say that somehow it was you know always there was this religion behind you cannot just think that it is all a composition of the penitent composition is perhaps evidence towards a system of education to dominating at certain times or at least expanding itself beyond the culture of the book at certain times that's I wonder about that as possible evidence you also wonder about this in relationship to the what you are trying to think about the vernacular the existence of Samara the existence of vernacular gloss or vernacular forms of education agglomerated along with the Sanskrit if we're looking at predominantly a cult of the book predominantly a sacred practice there's no reason why we're all being Sanskrit you don't have to understand the words right just like you know who understands maybe a few of the months but not even it's about there's a textual support for oral absorption but not semantic understanding and that scenario there's not need for the vernacular until you shift into another kind of learning process so I just wonder about that and the distinction between the post-oncorean and the oncorean period because of course in the post-oncorean period we do have hard evidence of vernacular composition and in the oncorean period we don't yeah and you know that is the how to say the biggest challenges I'm taking and I am not very sure of myself but it is interesting but it is interesting in itself the question is so interesting and until now we have not really worked on this to just say oh the Khmer they could write good Sanskrit poems like that and we don't know how many scholars at that time and how and how they learn the Sanskrit because it was not their mother tongue it was how to say Akwae, you know the language was Akwae not innate I mean the people could how to say could not speak the language for the everyday life and we have the example like Yashor Varaman so his father was you know to be a king of the Khmer kingdom so he had to speak the language of the people and also he was the how to say we know that his father was somehow we can say Khmer not Indian not you know foreigner so yeah I think we might look at the comparison of China for the Khushda Khashrama because if you look at the official biography of Amol Gavadjara who was the first very successful Buddhist in the Tang court towards the end of his life when he's been rewarded by the emperor he's helped to build many monasteries around China the last thing that he did his favourite project was to build a large building for the books for all the Buddhist texts some of which he brought himself from Sri Lanka and other places and there were rituals that described in that biography of Amol Gavadjara where he would walk around the books everyday so the veneration of the text it's a bit like the prophet in Islam it was the word of God almost in the text although he was of course a great scholar of Sanskrit and a translator into Chinese as were all his students and his students were international from all over Asia Japan, Java and so on the common language amongst them rather like the Vatican today is Latin Sanskrit they could actually all speak to each other as well their own language wouldn't help and also in China so they wouldn't be learning some Chinese but they could amongst scholars speak but I think there is a real a different clear concept of a place for sacred books to be kept and it looks like I have another question because you've not addressed the classical libraries apart from Prague namely the ones in Angkor Wat and the ones in the Bayon and also in Kray Rok and East Mekong what do you think was going on in those buildings well that it's a very big question and I can just say some sort of a ritual inside but what sort that we have to really dig out again and I'm also trying to see you know there are some in inscriptions we mentioned some rituals which we just call non-identified so maybe you know who knows that one of the non-identified terms for rituals maybe related to books but frankly speaking I don't really have the answer to your question that activity was there I've seen some suggestions that it was for vestments, clothing which the Brahmins or the monks would wear in rituals but also the instruments the instrument which are used in the temple ceremonies you'd have to keep them somewhere perhaps they alongside books were kept in these inscriptions or maybe to produce ashes for the Passion Fata yeah the ashes of books don't go together I've seen the books for the Kambi which also I think it might be useful for you because I thought about golden Kambi for Kambi so it was in the story yeah the material is okay just out of curiosity the images that you showed us I think there were a set of figures who were looking the only books that were looking at and you said you wondered if there were books or not yes because you know it's what you call like that the manuscript should be you know yeah and you should hold it like this but you know these two Rishi just like we are holding icons I was going to ask you what you thought they were but but that one maybe but you know really like the book in the present day and I really wonder Mira? No I don't think they are not just to look I mean look at themselves in mirrors like that yeah so if you have more ideas I'm sure you guys have questions everybody is just being shy it's always like this shyness come on to come back to my little figurative question is the even in the the appellation of so-called textbooks so if you take for example the call how do you know that that is designating in what context would you be able to determine that that's designating a particular text or even type of text and not just grammar at large right so the term can appear but it takes a very specific context to say therefore it's a text it's a text teaching grammar rather than the notion of grammar that I am devoted to right and you are there means of making that kind of determination no in the Sanskrit inscriptions you know because we would just say okay this Brahmin he is expert in Dhyakarana grammar so immediately we think maybe by family we just do the deduction like that frankly speaking if you really want to make sure then we really have to question each and everything and that will take not only one life but many life to see really what the type of text and also when they mean Dhyakarana then we have also to be in mind that maybe they are Dhyakarana I mean the Dhyakarana known in Cambodia was already different from those in India and we have many much evidence in because doing this with Dr. Chan you see we know a lot of differences between the medicines somehow we could detect some differences about medical science in Cambodia with those in India don't you know they just say okay they are experts they are doctors they are experts in Ayurveda but they are I mean the Khmer version of Ayurveda was different from here because and also astrology for astrology is very important to know because you know for astrology you have to look at the sky from the place where you are so somehow you know the scholars or the astrologers from India they had to really change or use their version of text to adapt to the Cambodian context because you cannot use the knowledge from India like that and then in Cambodia it just did not work and also for how to say some rituals in Sanskrit we have this like manuals to tell you how to do things just like in present day Cambodia we have which just guide you okay you have to do this first then this and this then I think the in those days they were also very much localized to the extent that the priests in India if they came to Cambodia then they would just say that it's not the no longer Shaivism, no longer Vaishnavism you know because for example if we could not find milk for the ritual so we had to use other substance to replace this you know you don't have that thing as prescribed in the textbook I mean in the scripture then you still want to do the ritual so you have to find ways to change to just how to say replace yeah so many many things like this happen and localize localization It's mainly a sign of a copying tradition I've never seen it in most book cultures like that where the the sacred text is found in an external language there is a usually tradition of copying the original and translating and making copies of that in the translation but is there in Khmer inscriptions temple inscriptions there's a clear separation you have Sanskrit at the top and then the management of it in old Khmer and there is I've never seen the Sanskrit word quoted in the Khmer section there seems to be a complete separation in one inscription so is there any indication of all of translating text into old Khmer language no and if I understand your question well you know it is only the reference to the copying of Sanskrit scriptures you know well the name for example Kashiqa Viti in the foundation of Banti Israel then we know that the brother of Yajna Varaha he spent all his time in copying the Kashiqa Viti and Kashiqa Viti by name we refer to Sanskrit text but in which language they did not tell us so we were just frustrated when we read we wonder whether it was like you know the Kashiqa Viti the original Sanskrit text or it was already translated into Khmer or you know half house then it's clear in China you've got a big translation tradition because they have strong tradition of Khmer not so much the Sanskrit but there is no indication of this no I don't think so well until now you know as far as I know you don't have this I think if you're to take a post on Korean as a possible lead into that then you'd be looking you're looking at a a bi-text kind of thing rather than a veritable translation bi-text sorry people are beginning to call bi-text that is a kind of mixture of not necessarily samurai we'll let's call it samurai so a mixture of Pali and Khmer but not a veritable Pali text or Pali composition or a veritable Khmer composition but something that is mediated between the two which of course characterizes Thai and Khmer and after the Khmer period so it can be taken as a kind of indication of you want to something very very different from what you see into that let's say from what you see in Thailand with a veritable process of translation the Hicks is there in Old Japanese in Sanskrit lay down the bi-text is still there yes so I'm sure there are some we've got a question she always has a question she keeps it to herself okay well I'm sure we can we can mill around in here for a little bit if people want to be more informal with their questioning and otherwise maybe we should wrap up the formal discussion and thank you very much from here thank you all of thank you to the chair thank you very much thank you for your question