Scholarship between the Lines: Interlinear Glossing in Siamese Literary Manuscripts

: This article explores the tradition of writing interlinear glosses in Siamese literary manuscripts dated to the late eighteenth and the nineteenth cen- tury. The glosses annotate archaic and obscure words found in texts transmitted from the kingdom of Ayutthaya and in texts adapted from foreign poetry, such as pieces of writing in Khmer and the Lan Na Tai language, reflecting an attempt by traditional scholars of the Bangkok period to comprehend these archaic and for- eign literary texts. The glosses from each literary manuscript appear to have been added separately and are not identical. The only text which reflects the glossing tradition is Yuan Phai , an archaic royal eulogy from fifteenth-century Ayutthaya in which identical glosses can be found in multiple manuscripts. Furthermore, the glosses in Yuan Phai were also adopted and enhanced, eventually constitut- ing a separate commentary of the text in the late nineteenth century. Although the number of glossed manuscripts that have survived is limited, the interlinear glosses in them reveal how literary texts were interpreted by traditional scholars and readers and should therefore be regarded as significant evidence of the study of Siamese literature and Siamese manuscript culture.