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CHAPTER II]
BOWER MANUSCRIPT.
xxiii.
ring which passes through a lrole in the left side of the leaves,54 The oldest known copperplates of this kind are those of the Kondamudi grant of Jayavarman (Epigraphia Indica, Vol. VI, p. 316) and the Pallava grants of King Sivaskanda Varman (ibid., Vol. I, pp. 4-6,397; Vol. VI, p. 84), which, on palæographic and linguistic grounds, must be referred to the second and third centuries A.D. respectively.55 They have their ring-hole near the middle of the left half-side. They are all South Indian grants; and seeing that, as already pointed out, the oblong form of the earliest birch-bark pôthis of Northern India, as seen in the Bower Manuscript, is an imitation of the palm-leaf pộthi of Southern India, it may be concluded that the placement of the string-hole in southern manuscript pôthis was the same as in the southern copper-plate grants, and that the practice of placing the string-hole in the middle of the left half of the manuscript was adopted by the northern scribes from their southern brethren, whom, in fact, they imitated in the whole mode of fashioning the pôthi. All the earliest birch-bark manuscripts of the fourth and fifth centuries show their string-hole on the left side. But as birch-bark (as well as palm-leaf) is a more or less fragile material, the practice soon arose for the greater safety of the leaves, to make two holes, in the right and left halves, at corresponding distances from the right and left margins. The earliest known examples of this practice are presented in the Horiuzi Manuscript (see Anecdota Oxoniensia, Vol. I, Part III, Plate I) and the two Nepalese manuscripts of the Cambridge Collection, Nos. 1702 and 1409 (see Bendall's Catalogue, Plate I, Figs. 1 and 2), all of which probably belong to the sixth century. Still later, the practice arose of replacing the two holes by one hole in the middle of the leaves. The existence of this practice is recorded by Alberuni in the eleventh century, who says (Professor Sachau's Translation of Alberuni's India, Vol. I, p. 176) that "the Indians bind a book of palm-leaves together by a cord on which they are arranged, the cord going through all the leaves by a hole in the middle of each." The hole was not at first in the exact middle, but probably a modified survival of the ancient practice-slightly more to the left, as seen, e.g., in the Nepalese manuscript No. XXI (Palæographic Society), which is dated in 1015 A.D. Still later, and in the present day, the hole appears in the exact middle of the leaves. The peculiar position of the string-hole, in the middle of the left side of the Bower Manuscript. therefore, is an evidence making for the extreme antiquity of the manuscript.56
54 This is the general practice; but there are exceptions in various directions. Thus exceptionally the hole is found in the bottom margin. A very old example, from the third century A.D., is the Pallava grant of Queen Charudêvi (Epigraphia Indica, Vol. VIII, p. 141). Two other examples of the 7th century are the Chiplun grant of Pulikesin II (ib., Vol. III, p. 62), and the Nausarf grant of Sryasraya fib., Vol. VIII, p. 232). Occasionally there are two holes at the bottom, e.g., in the 5th century the Ganesgad grant of Dhruvasêna I (ib., Vol. III, p. 320) and the MAtiyê grant of Dharasena II (Fleet's Gupta Inscriptions, No. 38, P. 168, Plate xxiv); in the 7th century the Samkheda grants of Dadds III, (Bpigraphia Indica, Vol. II, p. 20 and Vol V., p. 40), and the Nogawa grant of Dhruvasêna II (ib. Vol. VIII. p. 192). Another early practice, which however appears to be limited to a particular Central Indian province, is to place the hole in the top margin of the plates, as in the Khôh grants of Hastin and other princes (Fleet's Gupta Inscriptions Nos. 22, 25, 27, 28, 30, 31, plates xiii, xv, xvii, xx). Lastly the hole is occasionally found on the right side. The earliest exnmple of this appears to be the Paithan grant of the Rashtakatrakūta king Govinda III, of 794 A.D. (Bpigraphia Indica, Vol. III, P. (106). But the overwhelmingly favourite practice throughout ancient India, and at all times, is to place the hole on the left side.
55 These grants are written in Prakrit, and the spelling in Jayavarman's grant (single for double consonants), a Professor Hultzsch has pointed out (Epigraphia Indica, Vol. VI, p. 316) is exactly like that in the records of the Andfira kings Gautamiputra and Valishttputra, whose dates are c. 117-137 A.D. The spelling in Sivaskanda's grants has double consonants, but the writing otherwise resembles that of Jayavarman's grant, Accordingly they can be dated, at most, about a century later.
56 Revised from the statement in my Report on the British Collection of Central Asian Antiquities in Extra Number 1 to the Journal, As. Soc. Beng., Vol. LXX, Part I, for 1901, pp. 7, 8.
