Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in Jain Bhandars at Patan

SR No.: 011005
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Lalchandra B Gandhi
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra
Publication Year: 1937
Total Pages: 591
Language: English
Classification: Catalogue
File Size: 32 MB

Page 45

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some were moreover stolen away by interested persons. Many paper MSS. and also a few palm-leaf MSS. have thus gone to Bombay, Poona and to foreign countries. The Bhandars are at present all under the care of the Jain laymen and there is very little possibility of any MS. being removed by sale.
The Bhandars are housed either in Upasrayas or in ordinary houses. The Bhandars of the Vadi Parsvanatha will be deposited in the new magnificient temple of Vādi Pārśvanatha when ready. The MSS. are stored in small wooden or paper boxes called dabdas (occasionally in leather boxes also) which are again put in cupboards or large boxes. When the new building which is to be erected at a cost of Rs. 41,000, is ready, all the Bhandars will be transferred there.1
Want of care and change of hands have their effect on the palm-leaf MSS; but generally they are, in spite of their old age, preserved well. Although there are palm-leaf MSS. on which ink has faded, there is none which is eaten by moths. The smell of ghoda vacā (lcorous calamus) of which bundles are put with the MSS. make them secure against the attacks of worms. Some of the palm-leaf MSS., if properly preserved, would endure for 500 years more.
The Pattan palm-leaf MSS. are distinguished from those in Southern India by their size, quality of the leaves and by the manner of writing. The palmyra leaves employed in writing Southern MSS. are usually thick with a certain degree of stiffness, while those at Pattan are thin, soft and graceful. Thick palmleaves were, however, imported from Malabar, as is evident from a remark on a blank palm-leaf in the Sanghavi's Pādā. The letters of the MSS. in the South are scratched with a stylus and blackened with soot, while the writing on the MSS. in Gujarat has been executed with a reed pen. The MSS. in the South are not so old as those at Pattan. The oldest MS. found in the South dates according to Dr. Burnell from A. D. 1428. The script of the MSS. is old Devanagari and resembles the writings in the inscriptions of the time.
1 The pious hope of Mr. Dalal is likely to be fulfilled in the near future. A central MSS. Library at Pattan with up-to-date methods of preservation is now being organised in right earnest.
2 See p. 201.