1899 .] 
Section II.—Block Prints. 
67 
straight line, but approach or overlap one another, both horizontally 
and vertically. The same remarks apply to recensions I c (A) and 
Ie (E), each of which is printed eight times on a page of the Pothi 
(see Plates VI and VII). 
The two recensions If and I g must have been printed from blocks of 
the same size as those for the recensions Ic and Id. The two pairs of 
recensions (1/ and Ic, I g and Id) cannot have been printed from identical 
blocks ; for the same reasons which (as explained above) show that the 
two texts la and I b cannot have been printed off an identical block. 
The case is not quite so clear with regard to the recension I h (formula 
E) ; for I have noticed occasionally smudges on the blank space cor¬ 
responding to the omitted line 20. They look like very indistinct traces 
of the letters of that line, suggesting that its type existed on the block 
but had not been inked. In the blocks for 1/ and I g, the type of the 
omitted lines does not seem to have existed, the whole space correspond¬ 
ing to those lines being counter-sunk, excepting the ridge along the 
edges, traces of which ridge are still occasionally discernible (see 
Plate XI). 
For the formulas B and D (that is, the lines 6 and 7, 15 and 16) 
there do not seem to have existed any separate blocks. So far as the 
evidence, at present available, goes, those two formulas were never 
printed separately, but only existed on the block for recension la. 
The PSthI is undoubtedly a genuine ancient relic. It possesses 
every mark of antiquity in point of general appearance and condition. 
It is unique in its form of an Indian 'potlii. Its paper, which is hard, 
rigid, brittle and discolored, and its print which is faded, suggest 
considerable antiquity. In point of material and texture its paper is 
very similar to, if not identical with, the paper of the variety III5, 
on which many of the books are written, but it differs distinctly 
in colour, being more of a dirty greyish-brown, than of the 
dirty yellowish-brown of the books. With reference to this Pothi 
Sir A. 0. Talbot, in his demi-official letter, No. 5972, dated the 
23rd October 1897, writes that “ it might be of interest to note that the 
book enclosed between the rough wooden covers bears a strong re¬ 
semblance to the religious manuscripts still used in the Hemis and 
other large monasteries of Ladakh; and that among the metal objects 
sent 9 is what seems to be an old iron arrow-head, very like those with 
which the arrows in the treasure-rooms at Hemis are tipped. Possibly 
the excavation was made from the site of some former Buddhist 
monastery of which, according to Remusat, many must have existed in, 
and around, the Takla Makan.” The evident antiquity of the Pothi is 
9 This arrow-head as well as the Pothi were in the consignment M, 4, 
