are located in Tambapanņi-dipa, a sort of fairy land, which is probably meant for Ceylon.' Lankā does not occur. Traffic with China is first mentioned in the Milinda (pp. 127, 327, 359), which is some centuries later.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI

THE MOST ANCIENT COINS OF INDIA

EXPLANATION OF FIGS. 24 AND 25.

This explanation, being too long to be inserted here, has been transferred to pp. 321, 322.

L

CHAPTER VII

WRITING-THE BEGINNINGS

ITERATURE of all kinds laboured under a

curious disability. There were, for a long time, no writing materials- that is, none that could be used for the production and reproduction of books. And the Indians not only did not feel the want of them, but even continued, for centuries after materials had become available, to prefer, so far as books are concerned, to do without them. The state of things thus disclosed, being unique in the history of the world, deserves a detailed exposition.

The oldest reference to writing is in a tract called the Silas, embodied in each of the thirteen Dialogues which form the first chapter of the first division of the Suttantas, or conversational discourses of the Buddha. This tract must therefore have been already in existence as a separate work before those Dialogues were put together by the early disciples within the first century after the Buddha's death. The tract on the Silas may be dated, therefore, approximately about 450 B.C. The

tract contains lists of things a member of the Buddhist Order would not do. And among these is a list of games, one of which is called Akkharika (Lettering), explained as "Guessing at letters traced in the air, or on a playfellow's back." As the context' gives a number of children's games, this was almost certainly regarded as such. And for children to have such a game, and to call it by the name "Lettering," shows that the knowledge of an alphabet was fairly prevalent at the time in question.

The collection of canon law laid down for members of the Order under the generic name of Vinaya (Discipline) is in its present shape somewhat, perhaps two or three generations, younger. In it there are several suggestive references.

For instance, writing (lekha) is praised at Vin. iv. 7, as a distinguished sort of art; and whereas the sisters of the Order are, as a rule, to abstain from worldly arts, there are exceptions; and one of these is learning to write. A criminal "who had been. written up in the king's porch" (as we should say "who was wanted by the police") was not to be received into the Order.' In a discussion as to what career a lad should adopt, his parents say that if he adopt the profession of a "writer" he will dwell at ease and in comfort; but then, on the other hand, his fingers will ache. Were a member of the Order to write to a man setting out the

The whole tract is translated in my Dialogues of the Buddha, vol. i. pp. 3–26. The passage in question is on p. 11.

2 Vin. iv. 305.

3 Ibid. i. 75.

4 Ibid. i. 77; iv. 128.

advantage of suicide, then, for each letter in the writing, he commits an offence.'

It is evident, therefore, that writing was in vogue at the time these passages were composed: that it was made use of for the publication of official notices, and for the communication by way of letter between private individuals: that the ability to write was a possible and honourable source of livelihood that the knowledge of writing was not confined to any particular class, but was acquired by ordinary folk, and by women: and that it was sufficiently prevalent to have been made the basis of a game for children. A long period, probably centuries, must have elapsed between the date when writing first became known to the few, and the date when such a stage could have been reached.

But it is a long step from the use of writing for such notifications, public or private, to the use of it for the purpose of writing down any books, much less an extensive literature. And the very same texts we have just quoted show, and show in a manner equally indisputable, that, for such purposes, writing, however well known, had not yet.

come into use.

For if books had been known and used in India at the period in question, then the manuscripts themselves, and the whole industry connected with

1 Vin. iii. 76. The expression used for writing is here lekham chindati, "scratches a writing." From this Bühler (Indische Päleographie, p. 88) concludes that the material implied is wood. But the reference is to scratching with a style on a leaf.