Question

What were the four stages in the making of a manuscript?

Answer 1

Hint: All Mughal books were technically manuscripts because they were handwritten. The Mughal rulers were deeply interested in learning about new sciences and cultures and recording their achievements in written form for generations to come. This is why manuscript production was very popular in the Royal Palace.

Complete answer: A special place called the Kitabkhana was assigned for manuscript production and a large number of people were involved in producing a manuscript. The four steps involved in its production were:-
(i) The papermakers would in the first stage produce the sheets or folios for the manuscript.
(ii) Calligraphers would then write on these paper sheets. They were highly trained people with beautiful handwriting and a good command over the language, mostly Persian.
(iii) Then these sheets were sent to the guilders who decorated the pages with melted gold and other precious stones and the painters who illustrated the text through pictures.
(iv) In the last stage, the manuscript was sent to the binders for binding, who gathered the paper sheets and tied them together with an ornamental cover.

Note: Manuscripts were highly prized objects in the Mughal empire, mainly because producing them was a very expensive process which only the king and rich nobles could afford and also because they were written in languages of the elite, like Persian and Sanskrit and could not be read by the common people.