Indian calligraphy

Beginning in the 2nd century AD, Indic language was transferred using birch bark as a writing surface. Locally, the birch bark was called Bhojpatra in India - patra meaning leaf/bark/sheet in Sanskrit. Palm leaves were used as a substitute to paper, even after paper was available for Indic manuscripts. The leaves were commonly used because they were a good surface for pen writing, which created the delicate and decorative handwriting that is known as calligraphy today. Both sides of these leaves were used and they were stacked on top of each other. People then created holes on the leaves and held them together by string, thus creating the early Indian manuscripts, common in Southeast Asia at the time.

Indian calligraphy took off starting around 500 AD when Indian traders, colonists, military adventurers, Buddhist monks and missionaries brought the Indic script to from Central Asia South East Asia. Different concepts and ideas were being created throughout the late 400s to late 1400s, in a 1000-year span. The Gilgit scripts are the earliest notable form of calligraphy in India that date back to the 5th and 6th centuries. The earliest painted covers of manuscripts were created between the 7th and 9th centuries, and the earliest illustrated manuscript in South Asia was not formed until around the 10th century.

The languages of South East Asia were influenced by Indic language and culture. The languages were created came in the form of the basic internal structure, the arrangement and construction of syllabic units, manner of representation of characters, and the direction of writing (left to right). Before this left to right reading, the technique of Pothi came was utilized, which is the format of a book that is written vertically. This was useful for the illustrations made in these early manuscripts. Persian influence in Indian calligraphy gave rise to a unique and influential blend in Indian calligraphy, although a number of different calligraphic traditions existed in India already, and Indic scripts were fundamentally different from scripts used in Arabic and Persian traditions. The notable achievements of the Mughals included some of their fine manuscripts, which were usually autobiographies and chronicles of the noble class. They were initially written in flowing Persian script, which is very important to India, not only because it was one of the main forms of communication during this time, but also because these suggested a multi-directionality and mutuality of influence that Buddhist practice had on Indic calligraphers.

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