South indian incised mss

[Francois.Voegeli at orient.unil.ch]

On Fri, 2 Feb 1996 10:08:25 +0000 I received the following message from an
anonymous sender (I think it was posted to the Indology forum but as the
return address was "???@???" and there was nothing else in the header I
can't be sure):

>How do you handle *incised* south Indian palm leaf mss.?

>They can be a real problem, especially if the writing does not
>come out because they have not be treated with lemon grass oil etc.

This subject interests me very much also. I know south indian mss were
incised first and inked afterwards, but I have never heard they were
treated with "lemon grass oil" and I don't know what's under the "etc.".
If anybody has any precisions or comments about this I'll be delighted to
read them.
Thank you in advance.


Francois Voegeli
Fac. des lettres
Section de langues et civilisations orientales
Universite de Lausanne
BFSH 2
CH-1015

Tel.: (41.21) 692-2721
Fax.: (41.21) 692-3045
E-mail: Francois.Voegeli at orient.unil.ch