(    170   )
 

CHAPTER  XVI.

NOTES ON THE WRITING OF THE HINDUS, ON THEIR
ARITHMETIC AND RELATED SUBJECTS, AND ON CER¬
TAIN   STRANGE  MANNERS   AND   CUSTOMS   OF   THEIRS.
 

On -various
kinds of
writing
material.
 

T'he tongue communicates the thought of the speaker
to the hearer. Its action has therefore, as it were, a
momentary life only, and it would have been impos¬
sible to deliver by oral tradition the accounts of the
events of the past to later generations, more particularly
if they are separated from them by long periods of
time. This has become possible only by a new dis¬
covery of the human mind, by the art of writing, which
spreads news over space as the winds spread, and over
time as the spirits of the deceased spread. Praise
therefore be unto Him who has arranged creation and
created everything for the best!

The Hindus are not in the habit of writing on hides,
like the Greeks in ancient times. Socrates, on being
asked why he did not compose books, gave this reply:
" I do not transfer knowledge from the living hearts of
men to the dead hides of sheep." Muslims, too, used
in the early times of Islam to write on hides, e.g. the
treaty between the Prophet and the Jews of Khaibar
and his letter to Kisra. The copies of the Koran were
written on the hides of gazelles, as are still nowadays
the copies of the Thora. There occurs this passage in
the Koran (Siira vi. 91): "They make it kardtis," i.e.
Top.dpLa.     The kirtds (or   charta)   is made in Egypt,