The scroll form was not exclusive to China on the Eastern Silk Road. The earliest extant Buddhist manuscripts date from the first century AD and are from Gandhara (present-day Pakistan). They are written on birch bark — a readily available material there — and rolled into scrolls. A margin was sewn about 0.5–1 cm in from the edge to strengthen the edges on rolling. Several sheets of birch bark were overlapped and glued together to form a longer scroll. This text, written in Kharoṣthī script, is Anavatapta-gāthā (Songs of Lake Anavatapta).
Ink on birch-bark
The British Library, Or.14915/4