Western Discovery Of Jain Temple Libraries

SR No.: 269578
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Donald Clay Johnson
Publisher: Donald Clay Johnson
Total Pages: 8
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 2 MB

Page 5

196
L&ClJain Temple Libraries
sacred works of the Jainas, with the exception of three very small treatises, have now been obtained, and Sanskrit commentaries on most of them."
Thanks to the efforts of others, Bühler's search horizons were soon to expand tremendously. In 1872 Alexander Cunningham, director general of the Archaeological Survey of India, drew to the attention of the Govern ment of India Tod's 1839 remarks about the vast potential of Rajputana libraries to yield significant titles. He also added his personal experience: "in the great fortress of Bhatner I have myself seen a room 10 or 12 feet long, and about 6 feet broad, half filled with manuscripts, fastened up in the Native way in red cloth, and piled one on another to a height of about 4 feet. From amongst the top ones I selected a palm-leaf manuscript bearing the date of Samvat 1200 (A.D. 1142]."' The Government of India responded by allowing Bühler to extend his searches into Princely India."
Bühler made his first such trip to Rajputana from December 1873 to March 1874, accompanied by Hermann Jacobi, a German scholar then on a private trip to India. Unquestionably the highlight of the trip was Jaiselmer, where, after considerable effort and with the assistance of the Maharaval, the two were allowed to enter the library of the Oswal Jain temple. This collection, in large measure, derived from an effort of the Jain community to preserve its written tradition at the time of the Muslim invasions of India. They selected the remote desert city of Jaiselmer for this purpose and transferred many texts to the temple they founded there. While the collection was smaller than Bühler had anticipated, the treasures it contained far exceeded his expectations; halfway through his stay in Jaiselmer, he sent a preliminary report, subsequently published in the Indian Antiqtary. Particularly noteworthy was a manuscript dated A.1). 1103, then the oldest-known manuscript in all of India. Also included in the library were Hindu Brahmanical manuscripts from the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. The two visitors received permission to copy any titles they wanted, and while at the library they personally copied two works and left orders for twenty-eight others to be copied. However, Bühler subsequently reported that only four of these additional titles were ever copied and sent to him. Jaiselmer had several other temple and personal libraries that the two scholars also consulted. Jacobi, who had just completed his doctoral degree in Germany, spent most of the rest ol his academic life investigating aspects of Jain culture and civilization and wrote extensively on the subject.
Having gained access to one of the two most famous Jain temple librar ies in Princely India, there remained the challenge of seeing the other. Here Bühler failed, despite several attempts. The first try came in November 1873 while he was on his way to Jaiselmer. Although he had letters of introduction from various officials of the Baroda court, no collection in Patan was shown to him. He returned to Patan in March 1874 at the end of
197 his Rajputana trip with a letter from Sir Lewis Pelly, the British Resident to the Baroda court. The excuse for inaction at this time was that the chief officials of the city as well as the keeper of the Hemachandra Bhandar were away on leave. In May 1874 Bühlerlearned that the keeper had returned to Patan, and in the midst of the Indian summer he braved sandstorms and thunderstorms to plead his case to see the famous library. The keeper showed him some dilapidated paper manuscripts, thinking this would get rid of the foreigner. Bühler quickly realized that this could hardly be the foundation of such a famous library and pressed his case. The man appeared to give in and showed him 600 to 700 more manuscripts, but none of the treasures that others had indicated were in the collection. Although Bühler continued to press further, he saw nothing more and returned to Surat disappointed. He raised the issue once again with Baroda court of ficials, who intervened on his behalf and produced a breakthrough. The library keeper changed his mind and, as a gesture of good faith, allowed Bühler's agent in the city to see the entire library. The agent wrote Bühler that he saw forty boxes filled with rare manuscripts. While Bühler should have rushed to Patan, he had just been given permission by the Government of India to make a ten-month search trip to Kashmir. The opportunity missed at the Hemachandra became a lost chance as subsequent writings of Bühler give no indication that he ever entered the most famous of all the Jain temple libraries in Patan.
The manuscripts purchased or copied on the search trips were, by law, to remain in India. Scholars in the West learned of the great finds of Bühler through the printed lists of acquired titles that the Government of India distributed both in India and abroad. Knowledge of these new discoveries prompted the desire to see them, and within a year of the initiation of the search program for Sanskrit manuscripts the Government of Bombay began sending titles to scholars in India, Europe, and the United States. Unfortunately, detailed records were not kept for the loans within India. Since far more work was necessary to send manuscripts from India, records were kept for these transactions. The program of intercontinental lending of manuscripts lasted from 1869 to 1913, during which time 791 manuscripts were sent to scholars in the West. As its basic arrangement the Government of Bombay sent the titles to the India Office Library in London, which then sent the manuscripts to a library in Europe or the United States where the scholar who requested them could consult the works. From time to time, however, manuscripts went directly from the India Office Library to an individual. When this happened the individual had to place an indemnity bond before receiving the manuscripts.
German-speaking scholars dominated nineteenth-century Sanskrit scholarship, as might be expected, they requested most of the titles in this intercontinental lending program. German scholars of the Jains borrowed