Stab Binding

The large white calendar on the wall used to be a regular fixture in most of the homes in India. Big companies marketed them as a way to imprint awareness in young and mature minds. They had the calendar along with the dozens of holidays.

It's a great thing growing up in a multicultural world with multiple religions. Along with the mutual respect in coexisting, there's a greater number of school holidays and treats. To accommodate all that information, the calendars were super large.

My father would save the prior year calendar to use the plain backs of the sheets as pages. He would first cut them into smaller pages and bind several books with them. His favorite was the pamphlet stitch for larger books and a stab binding style for smaller ones. My mother would balance the monthly budget of income and expenses most efficiently with the books. Even though we led comfortable lives, she abided by this life-long habit. "Cut the coat according to the cloth," was the oft-repeated and practiced motto. The first two entries were for charitable causes. The rest of the entries were more humdrum. She continued this throughout her life.

I love book binding. It reminds me of my parents. They taught us the importance of conserving resources and respecting the planet. Being a voracious reader from the time I can remember, I have great reverence for books. In addition, I like to learn and create things. I particularly like finding objects that were destined for trash to repurpose them. Book making fulfilled all these wishes.

I once asked a youngster if she wanted to make a book with me. She said she did not have the materials to do so. I then picked up what we had on hand and made a book using the stab binding technique. What did we have on hand? An empty ice cream box which became the cover, and the brown paper bag it came in became the pages.

The stab binding technique and accordion type of binding originated in ancient India. The loose palm leaves which contained elaborate treatises were bound together by sutra or "threads that hold"with these methods. The pleated sutras were contained in the accordion binding where the first and last pages were glued on to outer boards. The stab binding technique of holding loose leaves together involved creating holes and threading them through with ties.

Early book binding was done on dry and smoke treated palm leaves. One of the oldest known and dated Sanskrit manuscripts still survives. It is a portion of Paramesvaratantra which is a scripture of the vedic tradition Saiva Siddhanta.

The spread of Buddhism played a huge role in shaping Asia. Before the Renaissance in the western world, Ancient India was a center of learning. The Indian philosophy is very esoteric, and Buddhism simplified the essence. Scholars and travelers from several corners of the world came to India in search of learning. The universities were repositories of science, astronomy, astrology, arts, poetry, philosophy, religion, and even love Each subject was researched and documented through centuries and passed on from generation to generation.

There was great interest in Buddhism. Travelers came from far east to learn, and King Ashoka encouraged the spread of Buddhism. This is how the Buddhist sutras entered China and Japan. The preserved leaves of the book with the carefully scribed knowledge could last hundreds of years. The Chinese called the binding techniques "Fanjia Zhuang," or Sanskrit binding.

Ancient India used to be a center of learning that attracted scholars from all over the world.Hiuen Tsang (Xuanzang) was a seventh century Chinese Buddhist scholar and traveler who became a monk. He brought over 657 Indian texts and treatises to China after studying in Nalanda World University in India, and he applied himself to immersing in the Sanskrit language. He translated the texts to Chinese. Earlier, Faxian had made the trip and he had brought back texts from India. With the gap and inaccurate translations, Hiuen Tsang wanted to clear up the misinterpretations in the text.

Buddhism from India also spread to other countries including Japan. The stab binding technique became part and part of Japanese culture. The Japanese people embraced the stab binding method, improvised, and added more to it. Today, this kind of book binding is associated with Japan and is referred to as Japanese Stab binding.

There are several binding patterns and techniques. There can be several stab holes to thread the book. The popular four hole has four well known stitches; the tortoise shell stitch, the hemp leaf stitch, Noble binding, and the Four-eye binding. There are several other patterns as well. Here's an example of a tortoise shell kind of binding. All examples are author created.

Book making is an elaborate process. We all have to begin somewhere. Keeping this in mind, I created a video for children aged from 11 to 99. The three hole stab binding is simple and fun. This is also Halloween time, and I included a little treat of a flip book. Enjoy!

This specific URL links the website that contains a cute set of dancing skeletons for making a flipbook. There are several pages for fun flipbooks, but set pages 1 through 2 to print if you wish to animate your skeletons.

https://www.printablee.com/post_printable-flip-books_134250/