Download - OATG. Oxford Asian Textile Group

VISITS and MEETINGS
20
Burmese woven tapes with a meritorious message
Ralph Isaacs‘ wonderfully illustrated and entertaining talk to the OATG AGM in October introduced
members to the fascinating world of Burmese Sazigyo – long, thin woven textile tapes used
for tying sacred manuscript leaves of Theravada Buddhism into bundles.
The scriptures and their bindings were always given as donations to a monastery, usually by
married couples who would commission a weaver to make the tapes and incorporate a prayer composed
specially for the occasion. Often geometric and pictorial motifs were added.
Mr Isaacs explained that his interest in these unusual textiles began in 1991 at the
Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, where he bought a couple of bags filled with old fabrics. After
months of cleaning and sorting he learned the script and picked out the names and dates of donors.
The tapes themselves are tablet weavings, made on a tablet loom – a 1.5m plank fitted at
each end with a movable block of wood. Each tape can be up to five metres long and takes around
50 hours to make. Although they are still made today, the craft of weaving lettering seems to have
died out in the 1970s.
OATG members were first introduced to sazigyo in an article Mr Isaacs wrote for issue 36 of
the newsletter, but since then he has been able to expand his knowledge of these curiosities. In
January last year he returned to Burma where he met Shwebo Mi Mi Gyi, an authority on the subject
and he has also been allowed to study an important private collection. This led in particular to
an improved understanding of the images often found on the tapes.
He found that the Earth Goddess, Vasundhera (known in Burma as Waythindayi) who witnessed
the Buddha‘s Enlightenment and then wrung out her long wet hair to drown the armies of
the evil Mara often appears on the tapes, as a way of witnessing the deed of the donors.
As Mr Isaacs so neatly put it: ―The appeal of any well-crafted object lies partly in its beauty
and in its fitness for its purpose. Inscriptions can greatly enhance an important part of its appeal:
the power to convey something of the way of life of the men and women who made and used it.
When such an object was made and first changed hands, it formed a message between members of
a cultural group with a language and much else in common. Reading and carefully interpreting
this message, we can ―tap into‖ this conversation which took place in a culture far removed from
ours in place and time.‖
MEMBERSHIP OF OXFORD ASIAN TEXTILE GROUP
(includes three issues of Asian Textiles)
£15.00 per year for single membership
£20.00 per year for joint membership
For those paying in dollars, please make a $30.00 payment via Paypal on the OATG website
or make cheques out for $30.00 to Ruth Barnes—not OATG–and send to the address below
www.oatg.org.uk
Membership correspondence to:
Joyce Seaman, The Old Vicarage, Asthall, Burford OX18 4HW