The content of the leaf kinh is engraved on a leaf called sli-krich, or the bao tree. This is a tree with an external shape similar to a palm tree, but has thicker, stiffer leaves and lives in the area of That Son.
When the young shoots have just sprouted from the branches, people use fabric to wrap the new outer part until the harvest day, the purpose of this is to keep the leaves clean and not damaged by insects. When fully mature and harvested, the leaves are soaked in a secret solution to help preserve them for a long time, then let them dry in the cooling air, then use the wood chips to flatten the leaves before writing. This stage usually takes months.
Venerable Chau Chhonl - Seated (head of the Prey Veng pagoda) - stated that the new writing process is the most difficult task. It is said to be written but in fact it is carved, because people use a Dec - father pen (a round wooden pen, a steel hook) to engrave the words on the leaves. "Scroll" is a small wooden stick that is just round with a sheet area, placed on the knees to be flexible according to the rhythm of the writer's hand.
"The most difficult thing is the smooth, regular combination between the two hands and the writing style must have the same depth. If the hand is too strong, the leaves will tear off, but if the hand is too light, the letters will become blurred, and they will fade over time. Most importantly, when writing, you must concentrate, not talk, like meditating to have a heart to write", Venerable Chau Chhonl shared.
Usually each leaf is arranged to be written with 4-5 rows, each row has 15 - 20 letters. After writing, dry and apply the mixture to the mixture of coal, fruit juice - umbrellas (used by the Kinh people to dye My A Lake, Tan Chau silk with a black color) to show the letters. Thanks to that, the longer the leaves are left, the more shiny the leaves are, the more sparkling the beauty of the color of time.
After completing these stages, the content of the monthly issue must comply with a separate rule so that when the monthly issue is read, the content is not disrupted. The art of "closing the universe" of the boundary of the boundary is also very special, the only thing is the connection between the boundaries of the boundary of the entire universe. To get this line, it is necessary to pour many hair strands into the round hole (pre-drilled) on the edge of the kinhlow leaf, then tighten and join it into a closed circle to the point where the location of the connection cannot be detected.
The whole art is called Sa-tra in Khmer. According to legend, Sa-tra appeared in the That Son region over 300 years ago by a monk who invented the Svay-so pagoda to copy and pass on the Buddhist tradition during the period when pencils were not yet available as they are today. After that, this art spread to the Nam Tong pagodas in the That Son range.
For the Khmer people, works from the leaves are not only rich in processing art and unique in the lines of the letters... but also have many cultural and belief values typical of the spiritual life of the community in the That Son area (An Giang province).
Venerable Chau Chhonl expressed: The kinh contained many contents about the three sacred animals, the relics of Buddha, etc., which were performed by high places for decades, even more than 100 years. Therefore, this is not only a work of art but also a document for young monks to refer to and compare when discovering differences in the number of letters and content in modern printed sources today.