Indian Epigraphy c9.t5: 5. Wood
Indian Epigraphy c9.t5
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5. Wood
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Wooden slabs or planks with four legs were used in some parts of India in the schools before the introduction of slates. Some mud or chalk was applied to the surface of the wooden slate on which brick powder was evenly spread. Figures of sums were then written with the help of a blunt stick, called *bartanā* or *barthā* in Rajasthan. The astrologers and merchants of Rajasthan made their rough calculations on such wooden ‘slates’ which were also used in some other parts of India even down to recent times.¹
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¹ Ojha, *Bhāratīya Prācīn Lipimālā*, p. 146.
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The *phalaka*, mentioned in the Jātaka stories in connection with young learners in elementary schools, was apparently wooden slabs or planks while the *Vinayapiṭaka* refers to the early use of wooden boards or bamboo chips as writing material.² Bamboo chips called *śalākā*, with the names of the bearers incised on them, served as passports to Buddhist monks. Kātyāyana and Daṇḍin speak respectively of plaints written on boards with *pāṇḍu-lekha* (chalk) and of royal declarations written on a varnished board.³ A large number of wooden sheets with Kharoṣṭhī writings have been discovered in Central Asia. They are mostly of the nature of letters.⁴ Some of these wooden records are wedge-shaped (called *kila-mudrā* in the documents themselves) and some are rectangular tablets.⁵
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² Bühler, *Indian Palaeography*, pp. 5, 93.
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³ Loc. cit. Manuscripts on varnished boards are common in Burma. The Bodleian Library, Oxford, is said to possess a manuscript on wooden boards, which was secured from Assam. They may however really be sheets of Aloe bark with a layer of wood attached to them (cf. *Journ. As.*, 1958, p. 86). Poor people of U. P. copied religious works on black boards with chalk (R.L. Mitra in Gough’s *Collection and Preservation of the Records of Ancient Sanskrit Literature*, 1878, p. 18).
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⁴ See A. M. Boyer, E. J. Rapson, E. Senart and P. S. Noble, *Kharoṣṭhī Inscriptions*, Part I (1920), Part II (1927), Part III (1929); *Select Inscriptions*, pp. 234 ff.
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⁵ See N. P. Chakravarti, *India and Central Asia*, pp. 21 ff.
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There are also some Indian records engraved on wooden subjects, e.g., the pillars from Kirari, the ceiling rib of a Bhaja cave,⁶ etc., which properly form the subject of the following section.
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⁶ *Ep. Ind.*, Vol. XVIII, pp. 152 ff.; *Indian Archaeology*, 1955-56, Plate XLIV.
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Linked texts (2)
- Jātaka — Pāli
- Vinayapiṭaka — Pāli