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

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L&C Jain Temple Libraries
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by the Nagarseth and the Panch, but rather by prominent members of the temple that owned the library. Second, administration of a temple library from time to time went to individual monks. Although Jain monks were to have no home and to spend their lives constantly traveling throughout the Jain community, Bhandarkar observed that this tradition was changing, and from time to time a monk would settle at a particular temple. When this happened the monk, for all practical purposes, took complete charge of the library. Third, Bhandarkar learned that libraries were not always located in the temple proper. When monks assumed control of libraries, they frequently had them moved into the living quarters that each temple complex reserved for monks and religious pilgrims.
When Bhandarkar assumed responsibility for the searches for Sanskrit manuscripts in the southern portion of Bombay Presidency, Peter Peterson, registrar of Bombay University and professor of Sanskrit, took charge of the northern. Peterson traveled widely in both Rajputana and Gujarat; his reports of his activities both reaffirm Tod's impressions and point out the difficulties in possessing such valuable collections of manuscripts. These problems centered on the Shantinath Temple in Cambay, and his account reads much like those of archaeologists as they made their great discoveries. Tod told of the underground room that contained the Patan manuscripts. The same was true in Cambay: "the books are kept in a dark underground vault, on stepping out of the light into which you can see nothing that in the least suggests the real character of the place. As the eye becomes accustomed to the darkness, a hole in the wall is seen, which is the entrance into the smaller and darker vault where the books are kept. We gathered below the one window which from above lets light into the strange place, and the keeper of the books grudgingly handed out one after another for our inspection."18
The manuscripts were carefully stored in numbered boxes. When Peterson returned to Bombay and examined his notes of the titles, and collated the numbers of the boxes he had seen, he learned there were gaps in the sequence. Two years later he returned to Cambay in order to see the boxes not shown to him earlier. However, he met with a very different situation, for the keeper of the library adamantly denied there were any more boxes. But then the keeper "came to me [Peterson) by night to discover if he could perchance make himself rich, and secure a Government appointment for his son, by making over to me books which by day he knew nothing about."19 Peterson wisely decided not to become involved in such a situation and returned to Bombay. Soon he learned the Jain community had grown suspicious of the keeper's activities and charged him with a lawsuit; the presiding judge had impounded the entire library until a trial could be held. The judge, knowing of Peterson's work on the collection, asked him if he wished to consult the library previous to the trial. Peterson
rushed to Cambay to study the manuscripts he had not been able to see on his earlier visits.
In 1893 Peterson finally visited Patan and attempted to see the Hemachandra Library. Like Bühler and Bhandarkar, he too was unsuccessful The resistance among certain Jain groups to outsiders' learning of the contents of their temple libraries amply fulfilled Tod's earlier observation. Peterson reported that the keepers of several of the Jain libraries simply left Patan when they learned he was coming, so that they would be unable to meet him. At the Hemachandra, however, more drastic action was taken.
Peterson found that the keeper there before leaving had not only locked the door of the treasure he loves too well, but to make assurance double sure, had run up a brick wall in front of it." It was senseless to try to continue the quest, and only at the end of the twentieth century has the Hemachandra Bhandar been more freely accessible to Western scholars.
The remarkable program to search for Sanskrit manuscripts initiated by the Government of India in 1868 had several reviews of activities during the subsequent decades. Each time the individuals who undertook the searches were able to convince appropriate authorities that the project was not yet complete, and the Government of India continued funding their work. This situation could not go on forever, and, ironically, it was the viceroy with the greatest interest in India's civilization who dealt the death blow to the program. Lord Curzon, viceroy from 1898 to 1905, summarily announced that the searches were a provincial and not a central government concern and turned over sponsorship of the program to the various states and presidencies.? In Bombay the great fame of the amassed collection of over 20,000 manuscripts allowed a plea to be made for modest funds to maintain the collection. The Government of India relented in this one aspect only and provided 3,000 rupees a year for maintenance of the collection.
Of course, one laments the death of the program. While such an event is indeed sad, the remarkable thing is that there ever was a program to search for and to preserve Sanskrit manuscripts. Current nationalist scholarship takes great delight in charging that Britain raped India of its wealth. While there is no denying that Britain benefited from its administration of India, activities such as the searches for Sanskrit manuscripts and, far more prominently, the work of the Archaeological Survey of India show that the Government of India also worked most actively to preserve the cultural heritage of India. Such work began in the nineteenth century, long before governments in the West felt it was their responsibility to sponsor such cultural work.
Had there been no Tod, Bühler, Bhandarkar, or Peterson, how much would we know of the literary heritage of the Jains, or more importantly, how many of the written documents of the Jains would have been lost?