]26 
A. "B. R. Hoernle EpigrapMcal Note on Palm^eaf, etc. [No. 2, 
IT 
manuscript of which portions are preserved in Paris and St. Petersburg, 
and which may be as old as the 
^ 1st century A.D. The strips of 
bark on which this manuscript 
is written, ^measure about 8 
inches (or 20 centimeter) in 
width and one yard, more or 
less, in length *0 (Woodcut, fig. 
1). This seems to show that 
anciently the strips of bark 
were used in their full size, 
perhaps in the form of rolls, like 
Greek manuscripts of papyrus. 
Or their length was cut up into 
smaller pieces, of about 4 inches 
each. Such is the Bakhshali 
MS., which measures about 7 
by 4 inches. The latter pro- 
bably belongs to the 10th or 
11th century, ^.e., about the 
time when Alberuni lived ; and 
orrwm 
JE 
Se/ClCc' t> 8 
he may have been thinking of manuscripts of this kind, when he wrote 
his observations. The writing was made to run parallel with the 
narrow side of the original strip, as seen in tlie published plates of the 
Paris and St. Petersburg MS. This custom was retained, even when the 
strips were cut up into smaller pieces, as in the Bakhshali MS. (Woodcut, 
fig. 2). The latter approaches, in its general form, the typical Indian 
palm-leaf potlil. It consists of a large number of separate oblong 
leaves, with the writing running parallel with the longer side of the 
leaf ; only the oblong is not so decidedly elongated as in the palm-leaf, 
and the string- holes are wanting. Still later, after Alberuni’s time, 
the modern book form appears to have been introduced. The strips 
of bark, cut into smaller pieces of about 12 inches, were folded in the 
middle, making up a “ form ” of two leaves or four pages ; and the 
writing was now made to run parallel with the narrow side of the page, 
so that, if the form is unfolded into the original sheet or strip, the 
20 The exact length is uncertain. M. Senart has measured one of the length 
of 4 feet (or 1 m. 23), but states that the strips evidently vary in length. See 
Journal Asiatique, 1898. See also Professor v. Oldenburg’s Eeport in the Transac- 
tions of the Imperial Russian Academy, for 1897. Woodcut, fig. 3 shows the exact 
measurements of a (^arada manuscript in my possession, about 250 years old. 
