330 M. M. Chakravarti— Language a?id Literature of Orissa. [No. 4 r 
The letters written with the stylus are themselves legible ; but to 
make them more legible ink is used. The ink is passed over the writing 
and filling the interstices of letters makes them clearer. The ink is 
made in several ways. It may be prepared by mashing in water the 
leaves of the aquatic plant ( kesadura ), and mixing with it the soot 
of the rice-boiling earthen pot ( bhat-handi ), or it may be prepared 
by crumbling in hand the kesadura leaves or the leaves of the creeper 
(batara ), half burning them in burnt straw, and then passing 
them over the writing to be inked. The ink is fairly permanent. 
The palm leaves are fragile and do not last long. In addition no 
special care is taken to preserve them. As they are mainly damaged, 
in the rains, the only precaution taken is to expose them to the sun 
in the month of Bhadra when the sun shines very hot. Against white 
ants so common in Orissa the only precaution taken is to keep them on 
raised bamboo platforms a man high, or on shelved platforms, when- 
the number is large. The use of camphor, &c., is unknown, and a 
white insect with two standing hairs on the head commits much depre¬ 
dation. Time also plays great havoc, the old palm leaves crumbling 
to pieces. Hence after 30 or 40 years the pothis have to be recopied. 
I have not seen very old palm leaf pothis. The oldest pothi which I 
have come across is a copy of the 4tli skandha of the Oriya Bhagavata 
of Jagannatha Dasa. It is dated 1143 Oriya Sana, 13th aijka of the 
King Ramacandra Deva and is therefore 161 years old. It owes its 
preservation to its being kept on a seat (gddi) for daily worship by the 
family of the late Babu Bicchanda Patnaik of Kalyanpur, Thana 
Jajpur. 1 
The pothis are brought out and worshipped at the time of the 
Sripancami festival (January, February), and often also at the time 
of the Dasahara (September, October). The stylus, the native reed 
pens and the ink pots are then worshipped with the pothis. 
• > « » 
1 Since writing this article I have discovered in the same house another pothi 
still older. The text is Sanskrit but written in Oriya. The last line runs thus:— 
l ^ SRI I I Tfa 
W3 <Ct *rSTTHrITW *1% I V I MS. Folio 124. The 
date of writing is 1103 Sana or 1696-97 A. D. j the MS., therefore, is now 201 years 
old. 
