Note 214 — Chapter IX · —Description of India

Strabo (XV. i. 67) states on the authority of Nearchos that the Indians wrote letters upon cloth, which was well pressed to make it smooth, but adds that other writers affirmed that the Indians had no knowledge of writing. They were, however, acquainted with writing for some centuries before Alexander’s time, but whence they got their alphabet is a question not yet quite settled, though the weight of opinion inclines to assign it a Himyaritic origin. We learn from Pliny (xiii. 21) that paper made from the papyrus plant did not come into common use out of Egypt till the time of Alexander the Great. He then goes on to say that for writing on, the leaves of palm-trees were first used, and then the barks (libri) of certain trees. Some of the Egyptian papyrus-rolls are as old as the sixth dynasty.