Thank you all very much for clarifying paṭa for me. The unanimous consensus, public and private, is for cloth of some kind (which is in line with the medieval dharma commentators), likely cotton or possibly silk.  It remains curious to me that not a single example seems to have survived, even very late, of a royal decree on such a cloth, but the evidence is overwhelming from the early observations of Nearchos, to the related terms in Indic and Dravidian, to the clear and surviving examples in ritual contexts.

Best regards, Don

From: INDOLOGY [mailto:indology-bounces@list.indology.info] On Behalf Of Matthew Kapstein
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2013 3:47 AM
To: Rajam; Lubin, Tim
Cc: indology@list.indology.info
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Meaning of Paṭa?

It may not be entirely out of place to recall the significance of the paṭa in
the sacred arts of medieval Buddhism, and, I suppose, other religious
communities as well. I have written on this in

“Weaving the World: The Ritual Art of the Paṭa in Pāla Buddhism and Its Legacy in Tibet”. In History of Religions 34/3 (1995), pp. 241-262.

My reason for bringing this up in this context is that so much of the emphasis in the materials I studied was on the paṭa, the canvas, itself, its ritualized production and sacred status. It
seems not likely that this was just forgotten in juridical contexts, and so it may have
been the case that a land-grant, edict, or contract written on a paṭa was in some sense sanctified, though here I am just speculating.

Matthew Kapstein
Directeur d'études,
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
The University of Chicago

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