<P> Not only did manuscripts remain competitive with imprints, they were even preferred by elite scholars and collectors . Ironically the age of printing gave the act of copying by hand a new dimension of cultural reverence . Those who considered themselves real scholars and true connoisseurs of the book did not consider imprints to be real books . Under the elitist attitudes of the time, "printed books were for those who did not truly care about books ." </P> <P> Nine inscribed copper plates thought to belong to the mature Harappan phase (2600 - 1900 BCE), are thought to be used for printing . The Indus characters in the plates are mirrored, and the loss in groove definition indicates repeated cleaning and polishing of the surface . The plates are also significantly larger than any seal, and much thicker, the thickness thought to help support pressure applied to their surface . The large nature of the plates makes them an unlikely candidate for seals as the tablets thus produced would be prone to breakage . The metal composition of the plates were characteristic for that period and location, and showed significant corrosion, indicating its ancient nature . Continuing patination across the surface of the plate, including on the lines, indicates that the marks were not made recently on an ancient piece of metal . On testing the plates for printing using two kinds of ink (water and oil based) onto rag paper, silk and parchment, the results on all three materials were found to be of remarkable quality . All these suggest that these plates point to the first known examples of printing in the world . One of the plates contains 34 characters, the largest number of characters found so far on any single object from Indus findings . </P> <P> In Buddhism, great merit is thought to accrue from copying and preserving texts . The 4th - century master listed the copying of scripture as the first of ten essential religious practices . The importance of perpetuating texts is set out with special force in the longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra, which urges the devout not only to hear, learn, remember and study the text but to obtain a good copy and to preserve it . This "cult of the book" led to techniques for reproducing texts in great numbers, especially the short prayers or charms known as dhāraṇīs . Stamps were carved for printing these prayers on clay tablets from at least the 7th century, the date of the oldest surviving examples . Especially popular was the Pratītyasamutpāda Gāthā, a short verse text summing up Nāgārjuna's philosophy of causal genesis or dependent origination . Nagarjuna lived in the early centuries of the current era and the Buddhist Creed, as the Gāthā is frequently called, was printed on clay tablets in huge numbers from the 6th century . This tradition was transmitted to China and Tibet with Buddhism . Printing text from woodblocks does not, however, seem to have been developed in India . </P> <P> Printing with a press was practiced in Christian Europe as a method for printing on cloth, where it was common by 1300 . Images printed on cloth for religious purposes could be quite large and elaborate, and when paper became relatively easily available, around 1400, the medium transferred very quickly to small woodcut religious images and playing cards printed on paper . These prints were produced in very large numbers from about 1425 onwards . </P>

Who brought the printing press for the first time to india in the mid 16 century