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the top ones I selected a palm-leaf manuscript bearing the date of Samyat 1200."18 Cunningham's remarks had their desired effect and the Government of India expanded the program to include Princely India,
Bühler made his first trip to Princely India from December 1873 to March 1874. With him on the trip was Hermann Jacobi, who had just completed his doctorate and was to spend most of the rest of his life studying Jain life and culture. Their first "success was the opening of a famous Bhandar at Tharad, to which (we) gained access in the beginning of December 1873, with the kind assistance of Major Y. Watson, then Acting Political Agent of Pahlanpur. The Bhandar contains a nearly complete set of the sacred and legendary works of the Jaina sect, and (we were able thence to obtain copies of a few books bearing on the history of the sect and of Northern Gujarat."14 The two then entered Rajputana and visited Abu. Nandol. Palli. Jodhpur, Jaiselmer, Bikanir, and Bhatper, all areas in which Jain libraries could be found. While there were disappointments, Jaiselmer's rich discoveries more than compensated for all other negative things. As Bühler said "after considerable trouble, (we got) a sight of all the manuscripts preserved in the famous Bhandar under the temple of Parisnath. Though this library proved to be smaller in extent than was formerly .supposed, its contents are of so great importance that I should have been satisfied with the results of my journey if I had found nothing else. It contains a not inconsiderable number of very ancient manuscripts of classical Sanskrit poems and of books on Brahmanical Sastras, as well as some rare Jaina works. With the assistance of Dr. Jacobi, I looked over every manuscript in the Bhandar, copied the vhole of Bilhana's Life of Vikramāńkadeva, and collated a portion of the Raghuvamśa, I made arrangements to have prepared copies of 28 manuscripts. Besides the great Bhandar, Jesalmer is rich in private Jaina libraries. I secured catalogues of four, as well as that of the Raval's private collection. I acquired also 23 old manuscripts referring both to Brahmanical and Jaina literature,"15
Bühler's formal report, from which the preceding extract came, does not give an accurate indication of how impressed he was with the
13 Alexander Cunningham to E. C. Bayley, C. S. I., Secretary to the Government of
India, Home Deparment, No. 15, dated Simla, the 17th April 1872. In Gough,
op. cit., p. 82. 14 Georg Bühler, "Abstract Report for the Year 1873-74" in Gough, op. cit.,
pp. 116-7. 15 Ibid., p. 117.
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