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clear evidence of the use of dluwcw, for wri ting purposes is lacking, however. In Bah also it is not generally used to that end. Perhaps beside the palmleaves no other material was needed. Moreover one can imagine the existence of a religious scruple against using dluwafj, sheets, which were associated with divine worship, for writing. In the Islamic period, on the other hand, the use of treebark paper for writing be came popular in Java. Perhaps the example of the so-called Arabic paper, introduced by Muslim traders, induced Javanese converts to put the well-known dluwat3 sheets to a new use, since the religious scruple was overruled by Islam. Moreover palmleaves proved im practical for writing the Arabic script (see 00090), so paper or a paper-like material was wanted. Since the seventeenth century the use of imported paper beside the native dluwaty paper increased. Dluwaw, paper could not be made in large lots of the same colour and quality, because the shrubs which supplied the bark had individual differences. The supply of imported paper was more reliable. Probably in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries occasionally parcels of Chinese and so-called Arabic paper were imported and sold in Java. The principal importer of paper was the Dutch East India Company, how ever ; paper from the famous Dutch paper- mills was appreciated at the Javanese Courts. The plentiful supply of good writing mate rial in the form of imported Dutch and other European paper was instrumental in the rapid increase of the production of books in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the period of renaissance of Javanese classical literature. It was made easy for authors to

write books in many volumes; writing the texts on palmleaves or dluwaw, sheets would have made an unwieldy mass. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the supply of European paper, made in a Dutch paper mill in Java, gave Javanese authors the opportunity to write down any thing they thought of interest. As a result Javanese books of notes of the last centuries contain valuable information on personal matters which in former periods was never written down. In the Islamic period the Arabic style of binding was adopted, characterized by a flap covering the front side of the book. Arabic bindings, all leather, mostly goatskin, with stamped decorations, were made in Java since the eighteenth century, especially for the use of religiously minded people who wanted books resembling Arabic volumes of Islamic lore. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries European bindings came en vogue. The European style was soon imitated by bookbinders who knew how to make the laborious Arabic bindings. For the rest bookbinding did not develop into a fine art in Java. The stamped goatskin bindings had conventional decorative designs. In many cases the boards of palmleaf manu scripts decorated with woodcarving are ar tistically more interesting. Since the eighteenth century, and perhaps earlier, Javanese artists have availed them selves of the opportunity, offered by paper and dluwav, books, to illuminate the texts with illustrations. Before, in the period of the lontar manuscripts, the palmleaves, being narrow and oblong, did not offer much room for making illustrations, and the paint did not adhere properly. Probably in the pre-