Indian Epigraphy c10.s3.19

c10.s3.19

The leaves of a manuscript, not their pages, were given consecutive numbers. The number of a leaf was usually put on its reverse except in the southern areas where it was generally written on the obverse of the leaf.⁸ In royal charters engraved on more than two copper plates, the numbering of the plates is sometimes noticed. Such multiplate royal records were more popular in the central and southern regions of India and only in some cases the plates are numbered. Sometimes they bear the numbers on the obverse as in the case with the southern manuscripts;¹ but the first plate, with its obverse often blank, bears the number on the reverse.² In rare cases, the obverse and reverse of a plate in multiplate records are both numbered as in the case of a modern book.³