Lokta is the inner bark of Daphne cannabina and papyracea, cut between 1,600 and 4,000 metres, cooked twice, washed, beaten with a wooden hammer, poured over a floating frame and dried in the sun. What comes off the frame is a tan-ivory sheet with long fibres crossing it at random angles, darker bark specks and four feathered edges.

Nepal wrote its land registrations, loan deeds and lalmohar on it, and copied sutras onto it, because the fibre resists tearing, damp, insects and mildew. This system keeps that substrate literal: a wide pothi proportion, text hanging from a headstroke, vermilion rubrics breaking the black, and nothing mechanically smooth.