Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c8.s1.52

c8.s1.52

Perhaps the first *exact* historical mention of books in India is that by the Chinese which records the importation of Buddhist books from India into China in 73 A. D. At the beginning of the 5th century A. D. we have Fa-hian's testimony that books were then rare, and he also tells us that he had to copy for himself what he wanted⁶. But two hundred and fifty years after this there was not so much difficulty; copyists were then to be found⁷ and Hiouen Thsang appears to have had little difficulty in collecting a considerable library. With the Buddhists and Jains it has always been esteemed a virtuous act to have sacred books copied in as elegant a way as possible, and to present them to monasteries⁸ or learned men, but though this practice is also mentioned by Hindus (*e. g.* Hemādri), the Brahmans do not seem to have taken to the notion, and their ᴍss. can at once be recognized by their miserable appearance. This is, no doubt, to be attributed to the peculiar reliance of the Brahmans on oral instruction only, in consequence of which books were rather endured as a necessity than held in esteem. This point of view is singularly displayed in Sanskrit literature; allusions to books are so rare that it would at first sight seem as if they were hardly in use even down to recent times, and it is remarkable that the works in which such allusions occur were all composed in N. India or Cashmere¹. The descriptions that one finds of the style and way of writing books which occur in some of the later Tantras and similar works all refer to N. India and Bengal, and not to S. India².