Jain Spirit 2001 12 No 09

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 56

HISTORY
KNOWLEDGE RESTORED
PARYUSHAN, AUGUST 2000
During Paryushan, the Kalpasutra is worshipped prior to its reading.
S deb
TUDENTS OF INDIA OWE A GREAT debt to the Jains for the hundreds of thousands of invaluable handwritten manuscripts preserved in their many jnan bhandars or "knowledge warehouses" in western and southern India.
Written copies of manuscripts have long played an important role in Jain intellectual, ritual and community life. In the absence of any living enlightened teachers according to Jain cosmological
doctrines enlightenment in the modern era became impossible shortly after the demise and liberation of Mahavir over 2,500 years ago. The texts containing the teachings of Mahavir are essential for the guidance of the Jain community. An early nineteenth century hymn expresses this sentiment quite clearly: "In this difficult time, the icons of the Jina and the scriptures of the Jina are the supports of the faithful Jains." Svadhyaya (the study of the scriptures) is an important and expected activity of all mendicants and is found in early lists of internal austerities practised by them. Various texts give us some details concerning the praxis of study in the early Jain tradition. In the Shvetambara Uttaradhyana Sutra we read, "There are five
52 Jain Spirit December 2001 February 2002
"Students of India owe a great debt to the Jains for the hundreds of thousands of invaluable manuscripts preserved in their many Bhandars.
John E. Cort examines the history of the bhandars (knowledge warehouses), reminding us of the devotion to knowledge and its preservation
elements to study: oral recitation, questioning, repetition, reflection and religious sermons."
Among the key events in the crystallization of the split between the Shvetambara and Digambara sects there were three Shvetambara councils held in Valabhi in Gujarat and Mathura in north India in the fourth and fifth centuries, all committed to writing standard editions of key Jain texts. According
to Shvetambara Jain tradition, the first libraries were built in the late eighth century. During a fierce drought between 785 and 789AD the monks grew lax in their observance of the full monastic behaviour and so several monastic leaders decided that manuscript collections should be established in major cities in order to preserve Jain knowledge.
Arranging for manuscripts to be copied for monks to use and establishing places for them to be kept were among the duties expected of laity as part of their support for and devotion to the monastic community. The three most important "fields of donation" for medieval Shvetambara laity were images of the Jinas, temples containing such
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