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Notes the Externals of Indian Boohs
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superfluous. The wonders of modem science have begotten in us a curiosity

of mind omnivorous that few of if willing to devote long
so us, any, are

exclusively to one subject, as were the old-time Hindus. And their

years

general temper of mind inhibited them from being in a hurry or being

vexed with things that we deem intolerably inconvenient With this in

mind, let us consider the history of some of these externals of a book.

What are the eitenials of a book P-*-They include everything but the

composition of its text, namely (1) the material on which the characters

are made (2) the shape of the material ; (8) the manner of keeping the
;

leaves together (4) the method of making the characters, whether by hand,
;

or by lithography, or by printing (5) the styles and sizes of the characters;

;

(6) tiie distinction of verse from prose ; (7) marginal words and numbers

to fSEUulitate the finding of desired part (8) punctuation (9) the

any ; ;

spacing or division of the words.

1. KateriaL "
The Hindus have used for their writings (besides tablets

of wood and and stone) the material that was most convenient :
copper

birch-bark in E^ashmir, where birches palm leaves in the south,

grow;

where palm trees Palm leaves were displaced in great part by the
grow.

introduction of admirably good paper.^ And good is now in some

paper

quarters giving to that is good-for-nothing. In this respect, as

way paper

in others, the Hindus are (perhaps with a sigh) participants of

many
*
modem '.
progress

2. Shape of the material. "

Palm-leaf MSS. were long and narrow,

not for mysterious reason, but because the nature and grain of the
any

leaf necessitated that shape. The lines run lengthwise. For similar

reasons, the birch-bark leaves were of a shape corresponding to our

quartos, and the lines run across the When was substituted
page. paper

for palm leaves, the inconvenient form was no longer necessary,

but was

persistently retained, and for the same reason as the two buttons on the

back of a coat for evening-dress, which buttons held the sword-belt

up

of a former generation. Even the birch-bark leaves of the old Bower

MS. are cut to the shape of a palm-leaf MS.

The line of an American

newspaper is about 6 cm. long ;
that of the

oblong Bombay edition of the Maha-Bharata of 1878 is about 88 cm. long.

The jump fix)m the end of line to the beginning of the
eyes one newspaper

next without conscious effort. It requires a distinct effort of the eye-^

muscles to direct the axes to the beginning of a new line when the jump
is one of 33 cm. We need not ask an oculist why such long lines ar"t

tiresome. In the first printed Sanskrit texts (of Jones and Carey : see

* Mitra's Report, 15.

p.
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By the Editor of this Series xxi
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below) the lines the as in a European book, and this

run across page may

now be said to be the prevailing fEUshion among the Hindus. Here again
they are departing from what (in Southern India at least) was ancient

They wise in doing, and we be sure that they do not

usage. are so may

take the trouble to console themselves with the fitct that the birch-bark

shape is a very old one.

3, Waj of keeping the leaTaa together. "

For palm leaves this was

usually done by putting the MS. between two stiff covers, making holes

in covers and leaves, and putting strings through them, which strings
then wound around the whole bundle. For MSS. it is
were paper was or

done by wrapping the leaves in cloth or and tying them The

paper up.

doth has a band sewed to the comer for tying. Both methods are

extremely inconvenient, and wasteful of time. The latter invites neglect,

and is that account often an ineffectual one, as one knows who has
on any

handled Indian MSS. and noticed how often occasional leaves are missing,
especially at the beginning or end. Even if the leaves do not get lost,

they get into disorder easily.

very

It is impracticable to bind palm-leaf MSS. and extremely troublesome

;

to bind
paper MSS., because each single leaf has to be mounted before

stitching. Even printed books are hard to bind when printed in folios

or in the curious Indian six-paged temions. Even if bound, the result

(save in the case of small books) is inconvenient for the hand, because the

* back' of the books comes at the foot of the versos and head of the rectos ;

and awkward for the eye,

because the first line of the verso is apt to be

too distant and the last line of the recto too near.
As intimated, an

old-time pandit actually prefers his books unbound. He is not given to

'
looking references '" As he sits cross-legged, a single loose leaf is
up easy

to hold; while a heavy bound volume would be most unhandy for him,

except as used on a desk or frame ;

and these, although mentioned, for

example, at Harshacharita (Bombay, 1892), p. 05, were probably not usual.

A scribe sits on his haunches, with his knees for a table (cf. Mibra's Report,

p. 22).
To shelve such unbound MSS. so that they be conveniently found
may

and consulted is virtually impossible.^ Six to twenty MSS. are often

tied in one cloth bundle. The great convenience of having the title
up

lettered on the back of a book and of being able to take a single one

from the shelf without further trouble cannot be duly appreciated until

one has handled these bundles. The Sanskrit MSS. of the Berlin Library

^ "f. Mitra*8 '

of
remarki on the Accessibility '
(or rather, inaccessibility) such MSS.,
24.
p.