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98
INDIAN ANTIQUARY, VOL. XXXIII, 1904; APPENDIX.
[§ 38, A.
above, page 5), is certainly not later than the 2nd century B. C. From the first centuries A. D. dates the Kharosthi Dhammapada from Khotan, as well as the twists of Bhurja and the stone vessels with Kharoşṭhi letters in ink from the Stupas of Afghanistan. Somewhat later are the ancient Bhurja and palm-leaf MSS. with Brahma characters. Painted inscriptions occur still in the caves of Ajanţă.1
Coloured ink, which in later times the Jainas especially have used extensively for their MSS., is mentioned also in Brahmanical works, e. g., in the sections of the Paranas on the donation of MSS.3 Besides chalk (see above, page 82, § 34, B), red lead or minium (hingula) was used, already in ancient times, as a substitute for ink."
J. Pens, pencils, &c.
The general name of " an instrument for writing" is lekhani, which of course includes the stilus, pencils, brushes, reed and wooden pens, and is found already in the epics.
The varnaka, mentioned in the Lalitavistara, no doubt refers to the little stick without a slit, with which the school-boys still draw the letters on the writing-board (see above, page 5). The Kosas offer the variant varnika. The varyavartika, which occurs in the passage of the Dasakumaracarita referred to above (see page 98 above, and note 7), must be a brush or coloured pencil, as, according to other passages, the vartika was used for drawing or painting." Tuli or tülika probably denoted originally "a brush," though it is explained also by the modern salat, "graver," a stilus."
The most usual name of the reed pen is the word kalama, kalapos, Calamus, which occurs in all eastern languages; the rarer indigenous Indian name is iṣikā or iṣikā, literally "reed."s Pieces of reed, bamboo or wood, cut after the manner of our pens, are used in all parts of India where the use of ink prevails, and all the existing ancient MSS. on palm-leaves and Bhurja probably have been written with such pens.10 The Sanskrit name of the stilus used in Southern India is salaka, in Marathi saļai.
Regarding the now very generally used "raler," a piece of wood or cardboard with strings fixed at equal distances, and regarding its probable predecessors, see Anecdota Oxoniensia, Aryan Series, 1,,3, 66, and Anzeiger d. W. Akademie, 1897, No. VIII, where photographs of two specimens have been given. According to a letter from C. KLEMM (April 21, 1897), the Ethnological Museum of Berlin possesses two specimens, one from Calcutta with the inscription nivedanapatira and one from Madras called kidugu.
38. The preservation of manuscripts and copper-plates, and the treatment of letters.
A.Manuscripts and libraries.
[93] Wooden covers, cut according to the size of the sheets, were placed on the Bhurja and palm-leaves, which had been drawn on strings, and this is still the custom even with the paper MSS. In Southern India the covers are mostly pierced by holes, through which the long strings are passed. The latter are wound round the covers and knotted. This procedure was usual already in early times13 and was observed in the case of the old palm-leaf MSS.
1 B.ASRWI. 4, plate 59.
2 See, e. g., the facsimiles in RAJENDEALAL MITHA's Notices of Sanskrit MSS., 3, pl. 1.
Hemadri, Danakhanda, 519 f.
D'ALW's, Introd. to Kaconyana, XVII; Jataka No. 509 (4, 489), pointed out by 8. VON OLDENBURG. See BRW. and BW., sub hac voce.
See BBW. and BW., sub hac voos. See BBW. and BW., sub hac voce.
See Mahesvara on Amarakoga, p. 246, verse 33 (Bo. Gov. Ed.).
This is the case in all the parts of India known to me; compare also RAJENDRALAL MITRA, in Gough'e Papers, 18,
11 Beruni, India, 1, 171 (SACHAU),
10 Anecdota Oxoniensia, Aryan Series, 1, 3, 66.
12 Compare Hargacarita, 95, where the sutravesfanam of a MS. is mentioned.
