Palm-leaf manuscripts (Talapatra grandham) are manuscripts made out of dried palm leaves. Palm leaves were used as writing materials in South Asia and in Southeast Asia dating back to the 5th century BCE, and possibly much earlier. They were used to record actual and mythical narratives. Initially knowledge was passed down orally, but after the invention of alphabets and their diffusion throughout South Asia, people eventually began to write it down in dried and smoke treated palm leaves of Borassus species (Palmyra palm) or the ola leaf (leaf of the Corypha umbraculifera or Talipot palm).