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Albrecht Friedrich Weber
(1825-1901)
It is said that Johann Georg Bühler (1857-1898) was more or less the first to open up the rich treasures of the Jaina literature. Bühler acquired a large collection of the Jaina manuscripts for the Royal library at Berlin in the years 1873-1878. This collection of manuscripts by Bühler was the basis which had given Albrecht Friedrich Weber an impetus in writing the first comprehensive and epoch-making accounts of the literature of the Jainas. More than one hundred years ago, Weber's book in German entitled Über die heiligan Schriften der Jaina included in his Indische Studien (vol XVI, 1883, pp. 211-479, and vol XVII. 1885, pp. 1-90) was published between 1883 and 1885 covering nearly 358 pages. As the book is so authoritative and at the same time so detailed in giving an account of the sacred writings of the Jainas till that time that it was translated into English by Herbert Wier Smyth in the name of Sacred Literature of the Jains and was published in 15 issues distributed in the five numbers of the Indian Antiquary beginning from vols XVII (1888) to XXI (1892). Besides the above, a general survey of the whole Jaina literature was also given by Weber in his Catalouge of the Berlin Manuscripts under the title Verzeichnis der Sanskrit-und Prakrit Handschriften (Register of Sanskrit and Prakrit Manuscripts) part II, Berlin, 1888 (Jaina literature, MS 1773-1928) and part III. Berlin 1892 (Jaina literature, MS 1929-2027, and MS 2299-2304).
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