Description
In Jain manuscripts, as in other Indian manuscripts, the end is the place to look for information on the title of the work, the author, the date of composition and so on. This is the case here, although no date is given.
This verso page contains the final part of the colophon of the manuscript, which is not necessarily the author’s creation. It is mostly written by the scribes who copy texts. Sanskrit is often the language of colophons, even when the language of the work is different, which is the case here.
The colophon starts on the final line of the previous page and continues on this page.
Other visual elements
There are several notable things about this page, namely that:
- the original paper is slightly torn and has water stains
- the bottom of the right margin contains the number 12, which is the folio number.
The three red circles along the central horizontal plane are symbolic reminders of the way in which manuscripts were bound when they were on palm-leaf. Here the central one is in a square blank shape. Strings through three holes were used to thread together the loose folios so the reader could turn them over easily. The circles are in the places where the holes would once have been.
Script
The elaborate script is the Jaina Devanāgarī script, in a form which recalls calligraphy. It is used for writing numerous Indian languages, here Prakrit.
There are a few notable features of this script:
- it is an old type in the way the sounds e and o are notated when used with a consonant, known as pṛṣṭhamātrā script
- the red vertical lines within the text divide the long sentences into smaller parts, but are not necessarily punctuation marks.