Switchover from palm leaves to paper

[Dominik Wujastyk]

On Mon, 5 Jan 1998, Ruth Laila Schmidt wrote:

> Can anyone provide information about when manuscript copyists left off
> writing on palm leaves and began to write on paper?
[...]
> I am especially interested in when this transition took place in Nepal.

Dear Ruth,

There is a fine discussion of this in J. P. Losty's book, _The Art of the
Book in India_ (London: British Library, 1982), ISBN 0-904654-78-8,
pp.5-12 et passim. Jerry makes the important observation (p.11) that the
Gilgit MS find "sugessts that papermaking was practised at least in the
Himalayan regions of the Indian subcontinent by the 6th century AD....
Papermaking in another part of the Himalayan region, the valley of Nepal,
was undertaken since at least the 12th century...".

For more on Nepalese traditions, see M S Slusser's book _Nepala Mandala_
(Princeton: PUP, 1982), although a quick glance suggests that although
Slusser makes several interesting and important remarks about bookmaking
and writing in Nepal, she doesn't deal explicitly with the date and
significance replacement of palm leaf by paper.

All the best,
Dominik

--
Dr Dominik Wujastyk        Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine
email: d.wujastyk at ucl.ac.uk      183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, England
<URL: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/>                FAX: 44 171 611 8545