Jain Journal 1970 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 14

208
JAIN JOURNAL
Paper Period (about 1400, or earlier, to about 1650)
The date at which paper came into use in Western India is not precisely ascertainable. I have seen a Svetambara paper manuscript with illustrations dated Vikrama Samvat 1204 (A.D. 1147), and I had tentatively accepted the date inspite of some misgivings20. But there can be no doubt that the date is false, as the learned Acarya Sri Vijaya Indra Suri has clearly pointed out to me in a letter. One of the texts mentioned in this manuscript was not composed until Vikrama Samvat 1364 (A.D. 1307), and the date of the manuscript was forged possibly to associate it with the celebrated Jinadatta Suri, whose name appears as copyist, founder of the Kharatra Gaccha of the Svetambara Jainas, according to one tradition, who was actually living in 1147 A.D21. The manuscript is to be considered as just what it appears to be aside from the date associated with it, namely, a typical late fifteenth or early sixteenth century example ; and it is therefore no longer necessary to arrange a history of Western Indian miniature painting to conform to the disturbing appearance of specimens so advanced stylistically at such an early date. My previous opinions have therefore been modified in the present treatment.
At Patan I saw a paper manuscript without miniatures dated A.D. 1278, possibly correctly. But in any case by the middle of the fourteenth century the use of paper seems to have been well established in Western India. In the catalogue of the Svetambara Jaina bhandaras at Limbdia, entry no 2869 is dated A.D. 1353, entry no 1564 is dated A.D. 1391 (entry no 2350 dated A.D. 1191 seems to contain a misprint, since that seems to be the date of the composition of the work, not of the copying of the manuscript) ; none of these contains
20 Brown (1). 21 Vijaya Indra Suri's letter dated December 6, 1929, said in part : "...I wish
to bring to your notice one important fact. So far as I know I have not heard of any Jaina work in paper Mss. prior to the 14th century. The commentary Sandehavisausadhi on Kalpa Sutra was written by Jinaprabhasuri in the early part of the 14th century (circa 1308). The Avacurni which is said to have been based on Jinaprabhasuri's commentary must have been later. So the Avacurni cannot be said to have been written in 1147. It is an impossibility. I think the mistake was committed by the copyist in the name of a great person to enhance the value of his manuscript by antedating it by nearly two centuries. So I cannot accept the date of the manuscript as 1147." For date of the Sandehavisausadhi, cf, also Jacobi, The Kalpa Sutra of Bhadrabahu, p. 25. See also in Indian Art and Letters, vol. 4, pp. 149-50, 1930. For Jinadattasuri, mentioned as copyist of the Ms., cf. Glasenapp, Der Jainismus, p. 352. Agamodaya Samiti Series, vol. 58, Bombay, 1928.