leather manuscripts

[Dominik Wujastyk]

Bijayanath Mukhpadhyaya, Administration of manuscript libraries with
special reference to Sanskrit (Calcutta: Sanskrit College, 1985), pp.29f.,
has:

(f) Leather - Leather also [as well as cloth] was not a common material
for writing in India.  Bühler reports that hide has been mentioned as a
writing material in Buddhist literature (Ibid, p. 95)  There is also
mention of ajina (skin of antelope or tiger) as a writing material in
Subandhu's Vaasavadattaa.  But there is no evidence in the form of exant
manuscripts on skind.  That some leather documents have been discovered at
Niya and Endere in Central Asia (Chakravarty, N. P., India and Central
Asia, p. 75) may be explained as due to European influence.

--

Nothing in Katre.

--
Dr Dominik Wujastyk
Wellcome Senior Research Fellow (from January 2002)
Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/histmed/