Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c8.s1.t3.1

c8.s1.t3.1

The invention of paper in 105 A.D., by one Tsai-Lun in China, was of far-reaching consequences, as it foretold the dawn of the new age in which paper plays such an important part. But in India four hundred years earlier, in B.C., 327 according to the observations of Nearchus the Cretan, a friend and follower of Alexander the Great, a kind of thin glazed sheets, made by felting cotton-wool, were used for the purpose of writing. We may place reliance in the authority of Nearchus, as unlike other historians of the time he never indulged in mythical stories. He was an honest reporter and took pains to verify the stories before he reported them. In the absence of any direct proof, however, it is difficult to say whether the writing material found in Panjāb was true paper.