Pothi Format

[Liisa Komara]

Forlanguages other than English, certain additional requirements apply to the interior and cover file specifications. This is to eliminate the possibility of printing errors when preparing the files.

While we accept manuscripts in a number of formats, we recommend PDF, especially if your book includes lots of images in the interior, is layout-heavy, or uses non-standard fonts. This also applies to books that are in Indian languages and to books in RTL languages.

In these cases, it is better that you convert it to PDF yourself and confirm that the layout is good. You can use Adob PDF Writer for this purpose. There are also several free tools available for your use, such as cutepdf.

It is better to submit your book in the PDF format. Especially if your book includes lots of images in the interior, or is layout-heavy, or uses non-standard fonts, or is in an Indian language, it's better that you convert it to pdf yourself and confirm that the layout is good. You can use Adobe PDF Writer for this purpose. There are also several free tools available for your use, such as cutepdf.

Pothi.com does not make any content changes or additions to the files submitted for publishing. So, make sure that anything you might want printed on the book is included in the file, even the blank pages where needed.

If you are submitting your files in a non-pdf format, please restrict the fonts used to the following standard fonts. Any other fonts used may not appear correctly in the printed file and may actually spoil the appearance of the book. If you are submitting pdf files, please embed all fonts used in the file.

South Asian manuscript culture is one of the richest and most diverse in the world. Featured here are treasures from India's scribal past. Manuscripts were written on a variety of materials, including birch bark, palm leaf, and paper. They came in many sizes and formats, two of the most common being the oblong pothi format and the Western codex.

The pothi format was dictated by the shape of the palm leaf. The leaves were cut to size and incised with a stylus. By rubbing ink into the incisions, the writing was made visible. The leaves were tied together by a cord that was strung through one or two holes, as can be seen here in the small palm leaf manuscript of a Sinhalese medicinal text. The large gilded manuscript of a Buddhist monastic text is typical of the Burmese tradition. It is held together by small sticks put through the holes in the folios.

The pothi format was retained for religious texts even after the introduction of paper to India in the thirteenth century. In the paper folio from an illustrated Jain Kalpasutra, the stringhole is replaced by a decorative emblem. The Sanskrit ritual text from the White Yajurveda was meant for recitation: the notations in red ink are Vedic pitch accents.

Also on display are two rare Tibetan Buddhist manuscripts. The black paper is created by applying a lacquer made of animal brains, powdered soot, and cooked hide glue, which is then burnished to create a lustrous surface.

Mughal manuscripts are famous for their lavish illustrations and illumination. Two exquisite eighteenth-century codices shown here are the Razm-nama (Book of War), a Persian translation of the Mahabharata, and an Indo-Persian Faras-nama, or treatise on horses.

The more recent Pashto manuscript combines plain calligraphy with surprisingly fine illustrations emulating Persian Safavid style. The illustrations appear to be a later addition and bear no relation to the text, a commentary on an Arabic logic text.

This page covers the structure and conservation of East Asian book formats. See also: Book Boards, East Asian Scrolls, and Fastenings and Furniture. For information on other binding traditions, see Bookbinding Traditions by Region or Culture.

Copyright 2024. The AIC Wiki is a publication of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC). It is published as a convenience for the members of AIC. Publication does not endorse nor recommend any treatments, methods, or techniques described herein. Information on researching with and citing the wiki can be found on the Reference and Bibliography Protocols page.

Book formats from China, Japan, and Korea have many commonalities from religious, intellectual, and cultural exchanges going back centuries. This section presents a brief introduction to bound and unbound textual works from each country with an emphasis on China. As more content is developed additional sections on Korean and Japanese traditions will be added. From an organizational standpoint, grouping traditions by culture and geographical location simplified the editing process. However, given the interconnected history and many similarities the compilers have noted tangential practices across all three traditions. Wherever possible, similar and related characteristics between book formats from the three countries are grouped together.

In East Asia, the scroll format first appeared in China, however, it is unclear whether it developed independently of its Indian counterpart or whether some important features were adopted by the Chinese from Indian prototypes. Although there are no extant examples, the shape of the stone gate at Sanchi seems to have been derived from an actual scroll. Before the invention of paper ca. 100 AD, book rolls were typically made of bound bamboo or wood strips, as well as silk textiles. The earliest surviving examples of scroll manuscripts written on silk with a bamboo or wooden strip affixed to the end to facilitate rolling were found in the third tomb in Mawangdui, near Changsha, Hunan province dating to the 2nd century BCE.

Gradual popularisation of paper as a writing support, alongside introduction of Buddhism with its notion of merit-making through copying of the religious texts, further stimulated production and circulation of books. Notably, one of the largest collections of manuscripts dating from the 4th to the 10th century, predominantly in rolled format, has been discovered in Mogao Caves near Dunhuang, Gansu Province. The scroll format has been extensively used throughout the first millenium AD for both manuscripts and woodblock printed books. It remained the dominant book form throughout the Tang dynasty period (618-917). While some Buddhist and Daoist books continued to be produced in a scroll form in the second millenium, for the purpose of secular publishing it was slowly replaced by other book binding formats, notably the newly-created butterfly binding during the Song dynasty (960-1279) period.

Despite some small, mostly aesthetical variations, Chinese, Japanese and Korean rolled books share the same main characteristics. In the case of paper books, a long continuous roll would have been created by pasting together a number of individual paper sheets. As text would be written and read from left to right, a bamboo roller-rod would be attached to the left end of the roll for the book to be wrapped around it. The roller tips were often decorated with precious materials such as wood (often lacquered or with mother-of-pearl incrustations), ivory, gold, porcelain, coral or tortoise shell. Early, pre-Tang, examples were typically unlined and unmounted. Sometimes sheets were further reinforced with paper or cloth lining. It was also popular practice to paste an extra blank sheet of paper at the beginning of the scroll to protect the manuscript.

In Pothi structures long thin sheets of a writing surface (usually palm leaves or paper, sometimes lacquered stiffened fabric) are stacked loosely on top of one another and protected by wooden boards. In some styles, a string runs through holes in the center or near both ends of the manuscript to hold the leaves together.

This format originated in India where the thin shape of the palm leaves dictated the format and size of the structure. Buddhist pothi books were introduced in China in the third and fourth centuries. In China the format was adapted using wood and bamboo, and eventually paper. As separate leaves held loosely together, Chinese paper pothi are important in the development of Chinese binding structures and can be found in collections throughout the world. There are no records of pothi bindings being used in Korea or Japan.

The origin of the folded format for sutras has two likely sources, the scroll or pothi. According to Xiao Zhentang (Helliwell trans, 136) the accordion format is derived from the scroll. Galambos points out the earliest surviving examples of accordion format are from Dunhuang (24, Dunhuang Manuscript Culture, Studies in Manuscript Culture, 22, de Grutyer, 2020, accessed via creative commons) dating to the 9th or 10th century. While the format is similar to a scroll that has been folded, some of the surviving examples from Dunhuang have characteristics of the pothi format, such as non-functioning thread holes (Galambos 29).

The act of copying or printing sutras is considered meritorious and is one explanation for the formats continual use for many centuries (see Sam von Schaik, p. 963-965, Manuscripts and Printing: Tibet, Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Brill 2015)

Text block construction: Paper is the most common support for Chinese accordion format devotional books. Depending on the length of the text, multiple sheets would be adhered end to end to form the book block. In some cases the paper within a single text block is not consistent and can vary significantly.

Media: Buddhist texts are often produced via xylography which was used in China at least as early as the 9th century for printing. Because of the devotional nature of printing Buddhist material, or financing the printing, the printing blocks were often retained by monasteries for multiple generations. The blocks could be reused as needed, often through patrons financing the cost of paper and ink. The text is usually vertical and parallel to the fold. Due to the thin paper typically used in sutra bindings the text and images are most often present on only one side of the leaf leaving the underside blank.

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