The Bower manuscript, as discovered, had 56 birch bark leaves, cut into oblong palmyra shape (rectangular strips with rounded corners). This is the form commonly found in numerous ancient and medieval Indian manuscript books (pothī). The pages are bound in Indian style, with each leaf containing a hole about the middle of the left side, for the passage of the binding string.[1] The undamaged leaves of the Bower manuscript are numbered on the left edge of the reverse side, a tradition found in ancient pothi manuscripts in north India, in contrast to the historic south Indian tradition of numbering the obverse side in manuscripts.