Indian Epigraphy c9.t4.2

c9.t4.2

⁸ See P. K. Gode’s ‘Migration of Paper from China to India’ in K B. Joshi’s *Paper Making as a Cottage Industry*, pp. 205 ff. Al-Bīrūnī says, “It was in China that paper was first manufactured. Chinese prisoners introduced the fabrication of paper in Samarkand, and thereupon it was made in various places, so as to meet the existing want” (Sachau, *Alberuni’s India*, Part I, p. 171). The Arabs are supposed to have begun to use paper from the middle of the 8th century A. D. (Wayriffe, *Arabica and Islamica*, p. 11; cf. Barnett, *Antiquities of India*, p. 229).