On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet c5.64

c5.64

³ In Gujarāt the latter method is the more common one, and a vessel, filled with a solution of chalk usually belongs to the paraphernalia of the schoolboys. But I have likewise seen the sanded board, on which the grains are made to adhere slightly by gum arabic. Very poor boys simply scattered dust on their boards and wrote in that, or if they had no boards, they brought brass kettles or pans and wrote on these with chalk. This happened even in the Government schools, where more usually slates and chalk-solution were used by the beginners or Āṁk-vālās, as the school-phrase is. Bērūnī, India, vol. I, p. 182 (Sachau), writing in A. D. 1030, mentions the use of black tablets in the schools, on which the children wrote with a white material.