136 Dr. Hoernle— A n instalment of the Bower Manuscript. [No. 3, 
i. e., one symbol for 50 and just below it another for one. What this 
means, I do not yet know ; but probably it refers to the numbering of 
the verses. 
The first leaf is only inscribed on the reverse side, the others, on 
both sides. 
With regard to the material on which this portion (as well as the 
whole MS.) is written, I may notice some curious circumstances. One 
of them has already been noticed in the Proceedings for November 1890 
(p. 223), that of the leaves, “ some are in single thickness and others 
from two to four thicknesses.” Of the five leaves of this portion, the 
first four consist each of four layers of bark, while the last has only two 
layers. Each layer is of extreme tenuity, almost transparent, and one 
layer by itself would hardly be fit for writing material. The fifth leaf, 
with its two layers, is still excessive^ thin. The several layers are not 
glued together, but appear to be in their natural state of adhesion ; 
with some little trouble, it would not be impossible to separate them. 
Another point also has been already mentioned by Professor Bidder 
in the Vienna Oriental Journal , Vol. V, pp. 103, 104, that the shape of 
the leaves is different from that of all other birch bark MSS., hitherto 
known. While the usual shape is nearly quarto, on which the lines of 
writing run parallel to the narrower side, after the manner of European 
books, in the Bower MS., the shape of the leaves is very decidedly 
oblong, the lines of writing running parallel to the long side, after the 
manner of the usual Indian paper or palm-leaf MSS. (pothi ). The dimen¬ 
sions vary in the different parts of the Bower MS. In the part, which 
I now publish, the leaves measure Ilf by 2J inches. In agreement 
with this peculiarity is the further circumstance, that the leaves of the 
Bower MS. were never bound or made up in a volume, as the Kashmirian 
bircli-bark MSS. are. In the latter MSS. every two of the square leaves 
above referred to form one sheet; the sheet is folded in the middle, and 
all the sheets, each making two leaves, are together done up in the form 
of a volume, very much as European volumes are. The art of preparing 
the bircli-bark leaves so as to admit of this folding and doing up into a 
volume is now lost,—since the time of the introduction of the manufac¬ 
ture of paper into Kashmir under Akbar about 200 or 250 years ago.* 
The leaves of the Bower MS. are all separate, and were held together 
by a string passing through a hole in them. This hole, however, is 
not in the middle of the leaf, but at the distance of 3| inches from the 
margin, or at about \ of its length. In the ordinary Indian palm-leaf 
MSS., the hole is in the middle of the leaf, or if the leaves are very 
* See Prof. Biihler’s Report on the Search of Sanskrit MSS. in Kashmir in Journal, 
Bombay As. Soc., Extra Number for 1877, pp. 29, 30. 
