| Ancient periods depended more on the manual works | | | | vain. However, a shortcoming on the latter part proved |
| rather than upon machinery and it reflected on the | | | | beneficial in terms of interpolations and textual variants. |
| ancient literatures as well; prints, being more recent a | | | | But a lot of people hold counter-opinions regarding the |
| phenomenon, like many other ancient texts, Bengali | | | | limited knowledge of the language of certain scribes |
| books also used to be handwritten. A sharp contrast | | | | for denoting the date of the creation in verse riddles |
| to the run-of-the-mill trend, these copies were made on | | | | instead of numerical figures required a lot of talent and |
| demand and required special skills. | | | | depth. |
| The handwritten scripts are called pandulipi in Bengali; | | | | A pnuthi has a certain anatomy; while the chief portion |
| the material on which they were inscribed was either | | | | comprised the main body text, the part where the |
| grey or pale yellow in color. This is one of the reasons | | | | scribe used to flaunt his own wordsmithry comprise of |
| behind the name pandulipi, since pandu stands for | | | | the following parts: |
| yellow in Bangla and lipi, for writing. | | | | Bhonita or pre-amble: Describes the name of the book |
| The material used to be specially processed leather, | | | | and the writer; a variant of Pushpika. |
| leaves or barks from trees; during the latter times i.e. | | | | Pushpika or colophon: Generally found on the first leaf, |
| the medieval period, paper made from cotton-pulps, | | | | at the end of the chapter or act, and on the last folio, |
| hemp, and linseed showed up. | | | | the Pushpika is a short, composite work made of a |
| This facilitated the making of large sheets, which were | | | | brief autobiography of the writer, the name of the puthi, |
| then cut to the required size and tied together with | | | | the date of writing/copying and the name of the |
| strings to give it the appearance of a book, with two | | | | person who is the provider of the task. |
| firm boards sufficing for covers. | | | | When it is on the first folio or at the end of a chapter |
| The Pnuthis so far discovered in Bengal have Sanskrit | | | | or an act, the Pushpika contains the names of the |
| or Bangla as the language; those written in Bangla | | | | scribe and the book whereas in last folio, the former |
| used the old Bangla Script. | | | | content is placed along with the dates of writing or |
| Inscribed by the professional scribes of yore, they also | | | | copying. |
| used to add their personal details at the end of the | | | | Being treasures of immense value, nowadays, many |
| pnuthi as a kind of an acknowledgement or disclaimer, | | | | of the educational institutions are preserving the original |
| from which, it was discovered that a lot of Muslims | | | | ones and making microfilms out of them; though the |
| also earn their livelihood through the profession. | | | | act shall preserve these great works of art for many |
| A good handwriting was the primary criteria and so | | | | more days to come, nothing can be done now |
| was accuracy, but without a good knowledge on the | | | | regarding bringing back the scribes, who have now |
| language, the first two qualities were considered to be | | | | become extinct due to the industrial advancements. |