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CHANDRAMANI SINGH
AN ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPT FROM MALAVADESA DATED VS. 1820
Sri Mahavir Digambar Jain Atisaya Kshetra Bhandar has recently acquired a profusely illustrated manuscript, which is lent by Sri Kesarımalji Gangwal of Bundil (Figs 1&2) The manuscript deals with various kathas--stories, relaled with religious days of a year and modes of worship, their importance etc in both Svetambara and Digambara sects of Jainism It also contains prayers to Sri Santinathji and other Jain pontiffs The book is written in Nagari characters but in three languages-Sanskrit, Maru-Gurjar and old Hindi of 18th century The format of the book is 30 8 X 23 cm consisting 34 to 36 lines in a page Its folios are sewn in the form of a book which is almost intact except a few pages 2 The manuscript consists 117 pages out of which ten have full page illustrations and fifty five pages are partly illustrated-sometimes three quarters of the page and sometimes half or quarter according to the subject matter The book begins with a prayer to Sri Santinath the sixteenth Tirthankara and is written in characteristic red and black inks Being a conventional religious text it does not display much literary merit but can be considered as a good work of art for its paintings.
Presumably the text was written in three different stages us the manuscript bears three dates VS 1820, 1821 and 1846 (A.D 1763, 1764 and 1789 respectively)
*Registrar, MS Man Singh II Museum, City Palace, Jaipur 1 I am grateful to Dr Kasturchandji Kasliwal for his kind permission and all the help Dr Kasliwal informs me that Sri Kesarımalji purchased a number of loose illustrated folios from a paper merchant and got them bound 2 Pages are not arranged correctly
