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No. 11
The Central Jain Oriental Library mands. The walls are decorated with valuable paintings, unavailable manuscripts and portraits.
In a corner you find the wooden staircase that leads to the upper floor. Stepping the last srair above you bow down with reverence before the bronze image of Saraswati. Passing through the packedup almirahs and a narrow balcony, you come to the art gallery. Collections of old coins, postage stamps, match-lables, matchless drawings and playing cards etc. simply fascinate your feeling. Some of these are scarce Treasures of the collection. You should not avoid to have a view of old manuscripts on palm-leaves and tree-bark, a few of which are hanging on the walls in wooden frames and the rest are resting in the almirahs. Other gems of this big collection need a close research of a scholar.
At present the library has a collection of about 7500 printed books in several Indian languages i.e. Prakrit, Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Gujrati, Kannad, Tamil and Telgu etc. The number of published English books have reached upto 3250. Besides the library is rich with its 6378 of manuscripts on palm-leaves, paper or tree-bark. The library has always tried to get true copies of manuscripts from distant parts of India, so for as its financial condition may allow. It has been the centre of literary and cultural meetings of such associations as Sahitya Mandal, Sahitya Parishad, Zila Hindi Sahitya Sammelan and several local Jain institutions. Men of re nown like Mahatma Gandhi, Pt. Madanmohan Malviya, Shree Sachitanand Sinha, Diwan Mirza M. Ismail, Dr. Walther Schubring (Germany), W. Norman Brown (America) etc. have visited the library and expressed their hearty satisfaction towards its good management and value of collections.
To recall the birth and development of the library, a few words about the activities of its founder and his successors would not be unjustified the library was first installed in 1903 A. D. in the name of "Jain Dharma Pustakalya" by late B. Devkumar Jain, under the presidentship of Shree Bhattarak Harshakirti Ji. It contained a number of manuscripts collected privately by Pt. Prabhudas Jain, a scholar of Sanskrit and the grandfather of B. Devkumar. Harshkirti Ji also collected some manuscripts from local householders. It was
