Venerable Chau Ty, abbot of Soai So Pagoda in Tri Ton Commune, An Giang Province (Photo: Ngoc Anh/VOV5)

Venerable Chau Ty was born in 1941 in An Giang province. In 2022, he was elected Vice Supreme Patriarch of the Patronage Council of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha.

As a highly respected figure in the community, Venerable Chau Ty works closely with the Vietnam Fatherland Front, as well as local authorities and organizations, to encourage people to follow Party guidelines and State policies and laws. He is regarded as a role model in strengthening national unity and promoting harmony between religions.

“Khmer people here deeply respect Venerable Chau Ty. He guides and teaches Buddhists in their religious practices and carefully looks after the community. It’s a great honor for us to have such a highly ranked Venerable. He has made important contributions to preserving the culture of the Khmer community, such as the art of inscribing Khmer scriptures on palm leaves,” Kim Som Ry Thi, Venerable Chau Ty’s interpreter and assistant, said.

Concerned about preserving the Khmer language and script, every summer Venerable Chau Ty organizes free Khmer language classes at Soai So pagoda. He also gets philanthropists to donate books and school supplies to disadvantaged students. As a result, Soai So pagoda has become a prominent spiritual tourism destination in the region, attracting a growing number of Buddhists and other visitors.

“The Venerable has been active in charitable work. He also encourages local people to obey the law. People listen to him and trust what he says,” a local person named Chau Nho said.

In 2017, the Khmer art of writing on buong leaves was officially recognized as a national intangible cultural heritage by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, partly because of the efforts of Venerable Chau Ty.

Venerable Chau Ty  performs a ritual at Soai So Pagoda. (Photo: Ngoc Anh/VOV5)

Palm-leaf manuscripts, a distinctive form of documentation in Khmer Theravada Buddhism, are now at risk of disappearing. Venerable Chau Ty is currently the only person in An Giang province who has mastered the technique of engraving letters on buong palm leaves. He has tried to pass this skill on to his students, but the technique is extremely complex and only a few people have been able to learn it.

Each palm-leaf scripture contains the teachings of the Buddha, folk stories, and traditional customs, and preserves the cultural essence and knowledge of the Khmer people.

“I’ve been involved in creating palm-leaf scriptures since around 1964. At that time, I met an elderly man living near the pagoda and I learned the craft from him. In 1967, I began creating palm-leaf scriptures myself and continued doing so until the 1980s. Most of the scriptures I engraved are now preserved in pagodas across An Giang province,” Venerable Chau Ty said.

Learning to engrave letters on palm leaves is very difficult and requires dedication and a high level of skill. Today, most of the leaves and engraving tools are imported. The process of making a palm-leaf scripture involves many stages, from preparing the leaves and making the ink to engraving the characters. This is a unique cultural tradition of the Khmer people, and not everyone can master it, Venerable Chau Ty said.

For his contributions to preserving and promoting intangible cultural heritages, Venerable Chau Ty has received many honors from the State. He was awarded the title of Meritorious Artisan in 2015 and People’s Artisan in 2019.