So early as the time of Alexander the Great, the Indians were accustomed to write on palm-leaves, as they do at present. This appears by Curtius in particular[219]; and, according to the testimony of Arrian[220], the Indians, at those periods, had hymns, songs, and poems. These, as I have already said, were written either on palm leaves, or a kind of paper wove of cotton, which was drawn through rice water, and then pressed smooth. Some of the ancient Indian kings, such as _Puru_, who sent a letter to Augustus Octavius Cæsar, wrote either on cotton or silk cloth, as the Thibetians do at present. The well-known Indian fables, ascribed to Pilpay, were written by _Vishnu Sarman_, a Brahman, who belonged probably to the Sect of the _Samanæi_. He flourished twenty years before Zoroaster, and was prime minister in the court of the Indian king _Dabshelim_. His fables were translated into Persian, in the sixth century before the birth of Christ, by a Persian physician, _Buzerchumir_, (Herbelot calls him _Buzervich_,) who was sent to India by king Artaxerxes, or _Anushirvan_[221]. When I combine, therefore, every thing I have already said, viz. the ancient inscriptions in the subterranean temples at Salsette, Cialembron, Mabalipuri, and other places; the testimony of so many respectable writers, and the concordant traditions preserved among the Brahmans as well as among the Persians, I am more and more confirmed in the opinion, that the Indians, many centuries before the birth of Christ, had their own peculiar characters and mode of writing, as well as original written works, the authors of which, such as _Amarasinha_, _Kalidàsa_, and _Pilpai_, or rather _Vishnu Sarman_, lived before that period. We shall approach pretty near the truth, if we suppose that the fables of _Pilpai_, as well as the _Mahabhàrada_, _Yudhishtira_, _Ràmàyana_, and different astronomical works, were written about the fifth or sixth century before the Christian æra. Cotton, in Portuguese _Algodao_, and in Latin _Gossypium_, is, in the Malabar language, called _Cerupagni._ A coarser sort, produced by the tree _Ilava_, is called, by the natives of Malabar, _Pagni_. The _Ilava_ is a large lofty tree, and the cotton it yields is employed only for mattresses and bolsters. That which grows on the shrub _Parutti_ is much finer. Both kinds are contained in an oval capsule divided into different small cells, and called by the French _La Coque_. The best cotton grows in Bengal and on the coast of Coromandel; and hence it happens that the cotton articles procured from these districts are the finest. The next in quality are those manufactured in the provinces of _Madura_, _Marava_, and on the coasts of _Pescaria_ and Malabar. The gradation proceeds thus to _Canara_, where the cotton is not spun so fine, and the articles consequently are much coarser.