History of Hindu Mathematics: A Source Book v1.c7.s8.42

v1.c7.s8.42

**Time of Invention.** The grant plates were legal documents. They were written by professional writers. The existence of such writers is mentioned in the southern Buddhist canons and in the Epics.² They have been called *lekhaka*, *lipikara* and later on *divira*, *karaṇa*, *kāyastha*, etc. According to Kalhaṇa,¹ the Kings of Kashmir employed a special officer for drafting legal documents. He bore the title of *paṭṭopādhyāya*, *i.e.*, the teacher (charged with the preparation) of title deeds. The existence of manuals such as the *Lekhapañcāśikā*, the *Lekhaprakāśa*, which give rules for drafting letters, land grants, treaties, and various kinds of bonds and bills of exchange, show beyond doubt that the writing of grant plates was a specialised art and that the style of writing those documents must always have been centuries behind the times, just as it is even to-day with respect to legal and state documents. The time of invention of the new system must, therefore, be placed several centuries before its first occurrence in a grant plate in the sixth century A.D. The exact period of invention may be roughly deduced from the history of the growth of numerical notations in other countries.