The string-hole outlives the string

Claim (verbatim)

The string-hole outlives the string. When western Indian manuscript production moved from palm leaf to paper, pages kept palm-leaf proportions and painted vestigial string-hole medallions — that much is known. The unestablished structure is the shedding schedule: vestiges should die in a fixed order, the functional trace first (the blank hole-circle), the decorative trace second (the hole reborn as a medallion), the format trace last (the extreme aspect ratio), each with a measurable half-life — because scribes abandon function, then ornament, then habit.

Prediction clause (verbatim)

Primary clause (the verdict follows it): in dated western Indian paper manuscripts of 1350-1550, the shedding order blank-hole first, ornamental medallion second, palm-leaf aspect ratio (wider than 3:1) last holds in at least 80 percent of dated transitions within each regional series. Secondary clause: the frequency of the blank pseudo-hole halves roughly every 40 to 60 years across the dated corpus.

Kill-dataset (verbatim)

Kill: the British Library's digitized Jain manuscripts, JAINpedia, and the Victoria and Albert Museum's online Jain manuscript collection, all carrying dated colophons.

Novelty / leakage triage

anticipated in the literature — this exact test has never been run

The vestiges themselves are documented — painted medallions where string holes would have been and the retained oblong palm-leaf format in western Indian paper manuscripts — as the claim concedes; the ordered shedding schedule with measurable half-lives across dated series is un-run.

• JAINpedia, 'What is a Jain manuscript?' (painted marks in hole positions; palm-leaf format persistence on paper)

Predictions

No prediction registered yet.