2.1.

Writing Material
Different from South India, where manuscripts were mostly written on palm leaves 1, the bark of the
birch tree (bhrja) and paper were the materials most commonly written on in Kashmir. The bark of
the birch tree2 became the characteristic writing material of North India because the Himalaya
region was rich in birch trees. One page of this bark material prepared for writing consisted of
several very thin layers of bark glued together. The material is fragile and especially in dry heat it
has a tendency to fall apart.
However, it seems that codices written on birch bark were not produced after the 17 th cent. AD.
Only small bark pieces with mantras written on them, which were worn as amulets, were in use for
a longer time3. The fragility of the birch bark also causes problems with the (physical) transmission
of the text. As the very thin uppermost layer of bark peels off, passages of the writing itself are lost
as well. The glue between the separate layers comes loose very easily, too. When turning a page, it
can happen that accidentally only the uppermost layer of the page is turned, which can also cause it
to break. Not uncommonly, damaged bark leaves were still used for writing. This becomes visible
where the writers avoided writing on chipped parts of the leaf.
Towards the end of the 16th cent., paper production was blooming in Kashmir. In the course of this
period, birch bark was permanently replaced by paper as writing material during the following
century. When determining the age of undated manuscripts, it is thus to be assumed that
manuscripts written on birch bark are more likely to date back to the 14 th to 17th cent. AD while
paper manuscripts were probably not written before the 16 th to 19th cent. The format of these
manuscripts mostly resembles the one of occidental codices unlike the manuscripts on palm
leaves in horizontal format.
Compared to European paper the Indian paper4 has a better durability. This was achieved by adding
arsenic to the glue made of plant products containing starch as a protection against insects and
fungi. Some of the paper manuscripts were treated with an emulsion made from tamarind giving
them a remarkably smooth surface5. The European paper, however, which was introduced in India
mostly by the British administration was affected very strongly by the climatic conditions6.
The manuscripts on birch bark as well as the Kashmiri paper manuscripts were often written by
scholars of Sanskrit (Pandit). Such manuscripts often recognizable because the writers noted their
name in the colophon are generally to be judged as more reliable than those written by scriveners.
Kashmiri manuscripts written in a form of the Devangar-script typical of the region do not appear
until the second half of the 19th cent. and even then only reluctantly. They are transcriptions from
rad almost always made by professional scriveners and are generally less reliable than their
rad-template7.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

cf. Janert (1955): 55-65.

Filliozat (1953 a): 711; Janert (1955): 65-74.
Bhler (1877): 29 et seq.
Filliozat (1953 a): 711 et. seq.; Janert (1955): 73-87.
Janert (1955): 85.
cf. the report by Fhrer (1884): 429 et. seq.
Bhler (1877): 32 et seq.

2.2. Writing, Writing Instruments

Usually, a reed pen (kalama, varnaka)1 was used to write manuscripts on birch bark and paper. They
were mostly written with black ink2 and without regard to word division although in some
manuscripts the boundaries between the words are marked with a small vertical line under the
respective Akara. Marginalia, colophons, annotated words etc. were sometimes highlighted by
rubrication. Omissions in the text may be marked with kkapadas () and completed in the margin.
Loss of text, which was either already known to the writer or caused by damaged parts forcing the
writer to omit a passage, was often shown by several short horizontal lines (- - -). Sometimes, faulty
syllables were covered with a colorful (mostly yellow) dot, over which the corrected syllable was
written.
To create an exact page layout with regular lines, special ruler instruments were used. Different
from the north Turkestan3 ruler instrument, the Indian instruments had the purpose of drawing
invisible lines on birch bark and paper4.

1
2
3
4

Filliozat (1953 a): 712; Janert (1955): 87-96.

Janert (1955): 90 et seq. Bhler (1877): 30 notes the following recipe for ink: Carbonize almonds and cook the
product with cow urine. The result is a highly water-resistant ink.
Sander (1968): 36.
About the construction of these instruments see Bhler (1897).