fortune telling: on a book or on a wall?

The quest to predict upcoming fortunes and events are an integral part of human nature, which makes fortune telling one of the oldest professions and forms of  science since the dawn of civilization. Part of the rich history of fortune telling in Thailand is shown by the “treatise on fortune telling”, which is a hand-written manuscript that documented methods of fortune telling along with beautifully rendered illustrations. According to the librarian at Houghton, this manuscript is meant to be a handbook of guidance for the fortune tellers in Thailand, and thus is understandably incomprehensible for the ordinary audience. Such is true because of the language that it is presented in and the diverse images present in the manuscript that bewilders the reader with its multifarious references. Every page is composed of a few lines of intricately hand-written Thai and several illustrations.

When it comes to specific functions and incomprehensibility to people other than the designated audience, the fortune telling manuscript is similar to another ancient media for information: wall carvings. The earliest wall carvings occurred in ancient Egypt, where wall carving is used as a media to document to history of the empire, the story of  deities and aristocrats and so on. The mayan wall carving occurred at an arguable time that is close to Egypt, and has a similar quality : to be read and utilized by a particular group of audiences.

However, if the “treatise on fortune telling” were to be transferred to wall cavings, there would be more difference than coherence between before and after the transformation.

First of all, the change in media would alter the implication of the text’s function. A manuscript such as the one we are examining, is meticulous, well-crafted, and personal. Its material allows the user to carry it easily, and its format is a horizontally folded “scroll” that delivers a sense of engagement as one must fully deploy his or her hands and attention to read it. Whereas a wall carving is based on the architecture of a public space, and is thus unavoidably public because of its material which suggests public location with a wider range of audience. Therefore, the transfer would allow the text of the manuscript to be more accessible, but also less accessible if we count in the decorative purpose of wall-carvings and how that will lead the audience to focus less on the contents but the form.

Secondly, the different medium have different strength and limits that would add to or weaken the text’s cultural effect. For example, the colorfulness of the manuscript makes up a crucial part of the manuscript because it adds to the imaginative contents that demands a lively interpretation. The bright, high-contrast colors and identifiable style of fluent lines are crucial identifiers of the east-asian visual culture. While on the other hand, the scale of the manuscript compared to wall carvings would make it less powerful as we see wall carvings of ancient Egypt or Maya that are so infectious in delivering their cultural value. Each medium has their own pros and cons, and transferring the manuscript to wall carvings will alter its cultural effect on the audience.

Thirdly, following up the effect brought by different medium, the quality of each media may not only lead to changes in cultural impact but even the contents itself. Creating the manuscript is a process, and there are space for spontaneity in its creation. Drawing on paper with beautiful colors may spur creativity and imagination, allowing the author to rejoice in the beauty of common life; meanwhile, carving into the walls may produce a very different effect on the author, turning him or her into subjects that are more historically significant. The difference is self-explanatory. Writing and drawing on paper to produce the manuscript may take years, but carving the same informations down onto the walls may take decades.

Whether it’s the manuscript or the wall carvings, they are both valuable means of documentation, and are the torches for the fire of our civilization. Nevertheless, transferring the manuscript to wall carvings may produce something that is less than ideal due to the many unique qualities of wall carving as a documenting media. Unfortunately wall-carving form of presenting  information is gradually lost nowadays as its functionality is not perfectly proportionate with the demanded input under the modern-world setting. Wall-carving is gradually fading away as a reading technology, but is well preserved and studied as an art form. The same trend can somehow apple to other out-dated reading technologies as well. At the end of the day, whatever changes and revolutions on reading technology we went through, our values in knowledge and beauty will always stay the same.