For the last three months, a Mon Language Teaching Course is being offered at Silapakon University, in the heart of Bangkok, directed by a groups of volunteers of Mon scholars living in Thailand. Over twenty students including leading academics from various universities in Bangkok have joined in the four-hour weekly evening class.

Maha Jaraunn, a Mon monk scholar with an M.A. at the Silapakon University volunteers his time to teach a free course with the cooperation of the University staff. The language class recently invited a leading Mon historian, Khun Sunthorn Sripanngern, to give a public lecture to students on the historical significance of the Mon civilization especially in the area of language and culture of Mon (Raman) relationship to Siam.

“We must preserve our language and literature right now to prevent further destruction to our moral society within the context of globalization,” Sunthorn addressed.

The Mon Teaching Course is not a formal class for international studies but is for the university staff to integrate the Mon language as part of the Thai Studies Program. Khun Sunthorn described the close relationship between the Royal Siam Families and the Mon Royal servants in the past two hundreds years.

According to Khun Sunthorn, the Mon in Thailand deserve awareness and respect for their language and culture right after the Hongsawatoi Kingdom (Pegu) was invaded in Burma by the Burmese, after having been discriminated against by successive Burmese governments before, during, and after the colonial period.

“When I visited local Mon temples outside of Bangkok, I found a vast collection of hand written palm scripts in the Mon bubble script,” Khun Sunthorn told the class at Silapakon University. He added that many of the palm scripts deserve special attention by worthy scholars intent on learning about the earlier worldview and philosophy of the Mon as well as offering a fresh perspective on the Thai art and Buddhism. Despite the fact that the new generation of Mon in Thailand is unable to read the script, a few Mon from Burma will be able to read Mon if they have the opportunity to learn it at the temples in their early years of education.

Currently, many Mon from Burma and Thailand are not aware of the utility of their Mon literature from palm scripts because many are attracted to western literature to gain their knowledge and wisdom. Many have missed a golden opportunity in developing their knowledge and wisdom because they do not take seriously the study of palm script literature, the speaker said.

“The palm scripts not only contain scholarly research into art studies but are also a guide to how to behave in the family,” Sunthorn explained to the audience.

A young lady flies in weekly from Phuket in southern Thailand to Bangkok to attend the class with a keen interest in Mon history. Among the students, whose age ranges from 20 to 60, all are strongly motivated to resurrect a nearly dead language, at one time, not too long ago, a significant language in Southeast Asia.

A similar project is being developed at the Thai Khadee Research Institute at the Thamasat University. Recently, the director of Thai-Khadee visited Wat Saladaeng, north of Bangkok, to photocopy the palm scripts with a digital camera to begin translation into Thai under a pilot project initiative. There are a few temples in Pathum Thani where scholars can find old palm scripts beautifully handwritten in Mon and Pali text. The scripts at Wat Saladaeng are kept in a small hall where a local Mon named Kuhn Sakon is in charge of directing visitors on a study tour.

Khun Sunthorn has studied Mon history for over twenty years both in Thailand and Burma. He is committed to building a strong partnership between leading Thai and Mon academics at Silapakon, Thamasat and Rangsit Universities and in promoting the historic value of the Mon Language and Studies in the Thai Kingdom.

Over the last ten years, Mon palm script studies are becoming more recognized in the Thai academic community in Bangkok while the Mon are being left out of the picture with no further opportunity to run Mon Studies. To address this problem, individual Thai and Mon Scholars are united to go ahead with funding the pilot-project with their own money.

“If we have a Mon Studies Resource Center in Bangkok, I think we can do better in the future”, Khun Sunthorn concluded in his lecture.

The free Mon Language Teaching Course is initiated by the Thai-Raman Association chaired by Hon. Dr. Su-ed Gajaseni at the Silapakon University located near Wat Phra Kaeo or the Grand Palace in Bangkok.

For further information about the Mon Studies and Language visit www.monland.org or email [email protected]