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APRIL, 1992
209
inter-continental, inter-library lending program for the Bombay Sanskrit Collection. Between 1869 and 1913 Bombay lent 791 manuscript to scholars in the west. Just as German-speaking scholars dominated Sanskrit scholarship during the nineteenth century, they also dominated this inter-continental lending program. Of the 791 manuscripts sent abroad, 547 or approximately two-thirds of them went to Germanspeaking scholars. Most interestingly scholars who wrote on Jain topics received 270 of the 547 manuscripts. Thus scholars of the Jain accounted for almost half the manuscripts sent to German-speaking scholars. Ernst Leumann at Strassburg received 96, by far the largest numbers sent to an individual. The three scholars who received the next largest numbers of manuscripts also wrote on Jain topics. They were Johannes Hertel, Dobeln (46) ; Georg Bühler, Vienna (45); and Hermann Jacobi, Bonn (36). The titles shipped to Bühler after his retirement from India amply point out his continued involvement with his research on the Jains,
There is no question that Bühler was one of the most widely known names in the scholarly world interested in India during the last half of the nineteenth century. The Government of India, too, recognized and supported his work most actively. More formal recognition of his efforts came in 1878 when he became a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire, the very year the order was established. Although the award would have recognized his services to the Bombay Education Department, the world of scholarship will always remember him as the person who introduced western scholarship to Jainism and who made its texts available for everyone to use.
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