Catalogue of Burmese Printed Books in the India Office Library

Abstract

• The India Office Library’s Burmese printed books, numbering some 2,800 works, constitute one the largest collections in the West and include many representative examples of Burmese writing from the early nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century. They are thus of special value and interest for students, scholars, and researchers. Notable among the older volumes are some of the earliest popular rhymed plays—pyazat—printed in Burma. Thousands of these flimsy paper-backed books printed on poor quality paper have been destroyed in Burma over the years by the ravages of insects and climate, by war and insurgency, and by being constantly passed from hand to hand. Relatively few well-preserved copies exist therefore except in a small number of libraries and private collections outside Burma. The greater part of the Library’s Burmese collection is devoted to works on Buddhism. There are however also numerous works on administration, Buddhist law, history, and the occult sciences, and there is good coverage of most of the prose and poetic writings of well-known Burmese authors. In this Catalogue the main entry for each book is alphabetically arranged by title in the Catalogue of Titles. An Index of Persons lists the names of persons mentioned in the Catalogue, such as authors, editors, translators, and persons about whom books have been written. Burmese names are to be found under the first part of the name, e.g. Bhui: Swan, Mon, not Swan, Moh Bhui: or Moh Bhui: Swan. There is also a Subject Index under broad headings. The system of transliteration aims to reproduce the written form of Burmese works in roman characters as accurately as possible. It is set out in a table on pages viii and ix. A fuller description may be found in Epigraphia Birmanica (Rangoon, 1919), vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 9-14. Some of the books, although printed in Burmese, have English titles. Such books are entered under their English titles. The cataloguing of a work under an English title does not necessarily mean therefore that the work is a translation.