Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c6.59

v1.c6.59

that India “made earthenware bottom and developed terracotta images, or printed silk and paper and paid tribute everywhere... Western Buddhists and laymen lived on it.” Terracotta images of Buddha on paper confirm that Indians had paper for daily use at that time. In terms of scale and quality of paper-making technique, the Chinese technique imported to the Arab Region after 751 AD was better than that of India. There appeared to be two routes for the transmission of paper-making technique into India. The first was from Xinjiang via Kashmir and the second was from Tibet via Nepal. The number of available Indian texts or manuscripts indicates that the use of paper in India increased gradually between 11^th-12^th century. The Indian paper-making technique also over time extended from Kashmir and Punjab to South India and its scale of production accordingly enlarged. The level of paper-making technique in some areas of India had become very high by the Ming period with success in manufacturing multiple grade papers such as Grade I white paper etc Ma Huan’s *Yingya shenglan* (*Overall Survey of the Ocean’s Shores* and Gong Zhen’s *Annals of the Foreign Countries in the Western Ocean*) record that the Grade I white paper made from bark in Bengal was as smooth and fine as chamois leather.