The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c7.11

c7.11

In Malabar is still to be seen the earliest mode of writing. The paper is the natural produce of the woods. They make no use of ink; the characters are engraved on the leaves of trees. The leaf of a particular palm is selected and dried until it can bear the impression of the styles. These leaves strung or tied together are formed into books. They are enclosed in a wooden cover, sometimes gilded and lackered, so as to make neat and handsome appearance. On these leaves also they write their letters, which they fold up, but the original practice of the country did not require them to be sealed. ‘The original Acts of the Council of Basil 900 years since, with the Bulla or leaden affix, which has a silken cord passing through every parchment,’ is mentioned in the above words by Evelyn as existing in his time at Cambridge, and which would appear to be the same form as that in which the Malabar MSS are preserved.⁷