Language: Sanskrit Script: Sharada.
Materials: Birch-bark
Dimensions: L: 28 W: 23 cm.
Acc. No. 76.726/2

This leaf, a well preserved piece of Bhoj-patra - birch-bark, in quite good size, is a rare specimen of a natural vegetable medium to have survived for some eight hundred years from the 12th century AD along with the inscribed text as also its base-colour. It is in its medium, a natural bark, not in any kind of illustrations or its artistic merit, that the object has its significance. The folio is a leaf from Bal-bodhini, a book of Sanskrit grammar by the known 12th century Sanskrit scholar from Kashmir Pandit Jagaddhara Bhatta. Bal-bodhini is a simplified version of the 5th century BC Vyakarana - grammar, by the India&rsquos pioneer grammarian Panini. Bal-Badhini has been written in this manuscript in Sharada, the script that had been long in prevalence in Kashmir. It has been inscribed in black ink.