Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c15.42

c15.42

Writing was generally done on palm leaves. Describing this practice Abdur Razāk remarks: “These people have two kinds of writing, one upon the leaf of the Hindi nut (cocoanut) (a mistake for tāḍi palm) which is two yards long, and two digits broad on which they scratch with an iron style. These characters possess no colour and endure but for a little while. In the second kind they blacken a white surface, on which they write with a soft stone cut into the shape of a pen, so that the characters are white on a black surface and are durable. This kind of writing is highly esteemed.”³¹ Barbosa described the same practice which he saw at the time of his visit to Calicut.³²