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INDIAN ANTIQUARY, VOL. XXXIII, 1904; APPENDIX.
[$ 37, A.
sometimes even is inflected, before the dates of the years; but, before the dates of the month falling in the bright half, su or su di for suddha- or sukla-paksa-dina, or in Kashmir sx or su ti (tithi), and before those falling in the dark half, ba or va di for bahula- or vahula-paksa-dina, or in Kashmir ba ti.
From the 6th century, the inscriptions of Western India offer here and there abbreviations of other words, such as dü for dütaka, dvi for dvitiya.
Later, especially since the 11th century, abbreviations of titles and the names of tribes, castes and so forth become very common. In the MSS. they are noticeable since the earliest times. Thus, the Khotan Dhammapada (Paris fragment) has, at the end of a Vagga, ga 30 for gathā 30; and in the Bower MS., plate II, élo for bloka and på for pāda often occur in connection with figures at the end of a section. In the inscriptions and MSS. of the 12th century we find with names, not with dates, the small circle or bindu, which is still used to indicate abbreviations; e. 9., 7 for thakkura. The same sign is used in Prakrit MSS. to indicate the omission of one or several letters that can be easily supplied ; e. g., aotabhavam for attabhavan, diothā for ditthā.
F. - Pagination, The Hindus number only the leaves (pattra), not the pages (prstha), of their MSS.; and in the Dravidian districts the figure stands on the first page of each leaf, in all other parts of India on the second sānkaprstha). The same rule holds good in the case of copper-plates, the sheets of which sometimes (but rarely) are numbered.
G. -Seals, According to the law-books,7 all 'Sāsanas [87] must bear the royal seal. Conseqnently, seals, welded to the plates or to the rings connecting the plates, or attached to them by pins, are found with the majority of the grants. They show the royal coat of arms (mostly the representation of an animal or of a deity), or, in addition to such emblems, a shorter or longer inscription, giving the name of the king or of the founder of the dynasty, or the whole pedigree, and sometimes merely an inscription, VIII. WRITING MATERIALS, LIBRARIES, AND WRITERS.
37. - Writing materials.
A. - Birch-bark. [88] The inner bark of the Bhurja-tree (Baetala bhojpattr), which the Himālaga nroduces in great quantity, probably is alluded to already by Q. Curtius (see above, page 6) as a writing material used by the Hindus at the time of Alexander's invasion, and later it is frequently named as such in Northern Buddhist and Brahmanical Sanskrit works.10 It is even called lekhana, "the writing material," and written documents go by the name of Thürja. According to Beruni,1 pieces, one ell in length and one span in breadth, were prepared for use
1 According to a letter from KIELHORN. 2 IA. 7, 73, pl. 2, line 20 ; 13, 84, lines 37, 40; 15, 340, line 57. * See, e. 9., IA. 6, 194 ff., No. 4 ff.; EI. 1, 317, line 9.
• Compare S. P. PANDIT, Mālavikāgnimitra, p. V, who, as also BURNELL, makes diothā stand for diththā; see also PISCHEL, Nachr. Gött. Gel. Ges., 1873, 203.
5 On an apparent exception, see WZKM. 7, 251. 6 Compare, e. g., B.ESIP. pl. 24; faceimiles at El. 1, 1 ff. ; 3, 15
JOLLY, Recht und Sitte, Grundriss, II, 8, 114.
• Soo, e. 9.. the oollections of soolo in platos at B.ESIP. 106, and EL 3, 106, 4, 211: see also F.GI (CII.8), plates 30, 32, 33, 37, 43.
► Compare BESIP. 84-93 ; RAJENDRALĀL MITRA, in Gough's Papers relating to the Collection and Preserva. tion of Anoient Sanskrit MSS., p. 15 ff. ; FÜHRER, Zeitshrift f. Bibliothekswesen 1, 420 ff., 2, 41 ff.
10 BRW., sub voce bhurja. 11 India, 1, 171 (SACHAC); the desoription seems to fit the Kharosthi Dhammapada from Khotan.
