Scribe is a writer, whether professional or amateur, of a text in manuscript. The scribe may or may not be the author or composer of the text in question; often used to describe a writer who prepares texts as an amanuensis for others or who produces copies of texts for further distribution. In the epics like Mahabharata, “lekhaka” is used to denote a scribe. The scribe need not be an expert in the field of the manuscript. The one with basic knowledge of lipi and having a legible handwriting were assigned by the kings as scribes. The purpose of hiring a scribe were as follows:

1. To preserve the knowledge for future generation.
2. To produce copies to compensate the loss due to damage of surface material and or ink with time.
3. To make multiple copies of the manuscript to give access to the subject experts living in other places.
4. Lack of digital technology left with no option but to choose manual reproduction of manuscripts.

Any variation in the content of original author and the reproduced content is called as scribal error. Expertise in the field was not the criteria for choosing a scribe. Legible handwriting and the ability to understand different lipi were considered important features of a scribe. All types of scribal errors creep in to the texts when they are copied, either inadvertently or deliberately, when the original readings become unintelligible to succeeding generations. Again, a lot of interpolations also creep into the texts in direct proportion to the popularity of the text. Scribal errors can be broadly classified as omission, addition, substitution and transposition.

Scribal error may be intentional or unintentional. An intentional error is caused by the ego of the scribe in modifying the content of the original author. Though it may have novel intention, the reader will not be able to relate to the thought process of the original author. Unintentional scribal errors can occur due to multiple reasons. To name a few, Lack of the knowledge of lipi, visual or hearing defect, forced writing, disinterest in the work, prolonged writing and so on.