Palm Leaf Manuscript on Ayurvedic Medicine, written in Malayalam Script, from Kerala, India

Kerala, India: Original Manuscript Circa 18th - 19th Century. From the Collection of Jacques Marchais [1887-1948] who in 1938 opened an Indian and Tibetan Art Gallery in Manhatten, to fund her desire to build a center of Tibetan Art on her property in Staten Island, showing her label on the wooden cover. The polished, bevelled wooden boards measure 9-1/2" long by 1-1/4" top to bottom. The stack measures 2-1/4" thick with the wooden covers, and 1-3/4" thick without the wooden covers, with a jute cord running through two holes in the book. With 82 leaves total, which were inscribed with a sharp stylus, then covered in ink made from oil and lampblack, wiping off the excess to reveal the Malayalam script. A few small annotations in pencil, in English, reveal some of the translations, *"Errhine for Coma" [Errhine means to be stuffed into the nose] *"Fever pill" *"Cure for sundry genital disorders" and *"Ginger powder". Malayalam script is a Brahmic script used to write the Malayalam language in Kerala, India. First written in the Vatteluttu alphabet, and ancient script of Tamil. Modern Malayalam script [which this is] evolved from the Grantha alphabet, [Modern meaning after the 7th Century].