AHC / WI: Movable Type in India

I'm not sure about the AHC aspect of this, given that I'm not really an expert in the history or functions of the printing press (my reply would just be "invent the printing press in India", pretty much), but is a movable-type press in India feasible before Gutenberg? And if so, what ramifications would that have?
 
The Devanagari scripts, as I understand it, have lots and lots of variants where letters go under or over or around the next letter, plus digraphs (combination forms), and so on.
The Arabic based North Indian scripts (e.g. for Urdu) presumably have all the problems that Arabic has with multiple letter forms.

That makes India a bad place to start printing with movable type. As various people have pointed out, Arabic (and thus, I assume, the Persianate forms used in India) certainly can be printed and the difficulties are often overstated, but I would think that it would make it trickier to start printing there.

Also, what kind of press exists in India that would make a good starting point for a printing press? Europe had olive presses (iirc), which they adapted. I have no clue what India had that way, or hadn't, but if you have to invent BOTH the type AND the press at once, it's going to be a much, much bigger hurdle.

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Also, you need a cheap material to print ON. When does paper appear in India. If you need three separate independent inventions to get printing somewhere, it just isn't going to happen.
 
The Devanagari scripts, as I understand it, have lots and lots of variants where letters go under or over or around the next letter, plus digraphs (combination forms), and so on.
The Arabic based North Indian scripts (e.g. for Urdu) presumably have all the problems that Arabic has with multiple letter forms.

That makes India a bad place to start printing with movable type. As various people have pointed out, Arabic (and thus, I assume, the Persianate forms used in India) certainly can be printed and the difficulties are often overstated, but I would think that it would make it trickier to start printing there.

Also, what kind of press exists in India that would make a good starting point for a printing press? Europe had olive presses (iirc), which they adapted. I have no clue what India had that way, or hadn't, but if you have to invent BOTH the type AND the press at once, it's going to be a much, much bigger hurdle.

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Also, you need a cheap material to print ON. When does paper appear in India. If you need three separate independent inventions to get printing somewhere, it just isn't going to happen.

IIRC the southern brahmic scripts don't have as many problems with letter complexity as devanagari.

The dominant form of cooking oil in the Tamil country was coconut oil which presumably would have been pressed.

Paper is still an issue.
 
Very helpful. Thanks.

The dominant form of cooking oil in the Tamil country was coconut oil which presumably would have been pressed.
So, I googled a bit, and found the following
  • Traditional coconut oil is produced in homes mostly in rural areas where dry coconuts are scraped and then the milk is extracted. Thereafter, the milk is heated over a high temperature going up to 120°C, allowing the oil to collect at the top of the pan.
That doesn't preclude presses having been used in larger estates, cities, whatever....
 
Does a printing press really need to use paper?
Short answer: Yes
Long answer: Effectively, yes. Parchment is expensive enough that you can't afford to print the numbers of copies that make a printing press worthwhile. Papyrus is theoretically possible, at least in Egypt, but it has problems, too. I don't remember them all, but I THINK it might be too brittle to deal with with a press. I suspect its cost is a lot higher than paper, too.
 
Short answer: Yes
Long answer: Effectively, yes. Parchment is expensive enough that you can't afford to print the numbers of copies that make a printing press worthwhile. Papyrus is theoretically possible, at least in Egypt, but it has problems, too. I don't remember them all, but I THINK it might be too brittle to deal with with a press. I suspect its cost is a lot higher than paper, too.

What about (in the early stages of development), clay? You would insert the wet clay, press the arranged blocks in, leaving an impression rather than an ink mark, and then fire it. This wouldn't be useful to long works (although I'm sure you can make thin clay tablets, even then a shorter work would be impossibly heavy), but it could be really good for mass producing royal decrees and even short letters.

However, this site (http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_es/t_es_tiwar_paper.htm) seems to indicate that India had a native paper industry was early as the 1400s which was renowned and that its epicenter was in Punjab. So paper might be less of an issue than we might otherwise assume.
 
However, this site (http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_es/t_es_tiwar_paper.htm) seems to indicate that India had a native paper industry was early as the 1400s which was renowned and that its epicenter was in Punjab. So paper might be less of an issue than we might otherwise assume.
Ah. Sure, but paper's being produced already in Europe by then. Technically, then, you could get a printing press in India earlier than Gutenberg, but it won't be by more than a few years. That would technically meet the OP's request. I had assumed he meant rather earlier than that, but perhaps I was wrong.

Certainly, beating Europe by a decade or so should be possible. Yes, with the right local genius.
 
The Devanagari scripts, as I understand it, have lots and lots of variants where letters go under or over or around the next letter, plus digraphs (combination forms), and so on.
The Arabic based North Indian scripts (e.g. for Urdu) presumably have all the problems that Arabic has with multiple letter forms.
Does make it more difficult.

How many copies of a text would have to be made before an artist felt it justified all the effort? Maybe 100. And maybe carving into soft wood which would also hold ink?
 
Then again, printing OTL had a remarkable standardizing effect on script and language. Is it not possible that a "printer's script" might develop here that simplied the chaos of these characters.
 
Does make it more difficult.

How many copies of a text would have to be made before an artist felt it justified all the effort? Maybe 100. And maybe carving into soft wood which would also hold ink?
You can get lithography/woodcuts much earlier than movable type most anywhere.

IIRC, the Chinese/Japanese used that technique without even needing a press. Make your wood cut, ink it, carefully settle the paper on. Remove, dry.
 
Then again, printing OTL had a remarkable standardizing effect on script and language. Is it not possible that a "printer's script" might develop here that simplied the chaos of these characters.

This strikes me as highly likely. From what little I know of Devanagari, a standardization that removes some its more florid qualities is not impossible, especially if it first catches on among merchant classes and people whose main use for writing is that it convey information in a straightforward manner.
 
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