Jinamanjari 1998 09 No 18

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

Page 43

over again. The original report, however, written ten years after the event and published in German in an Austrian weekly, has almost been forgotten. The following translation of the most significant passages of this report should therefore be of interest.
Bühler was the education inspector for a district of northern Gujarat, when he received an order from the Viceroy in 1868 to access and catalogue the indigenous libraries of the region, and to buy manuscripts with the help of a Jain agent as source materials for the compilation of a digest of Hindu Law to be produced for European Universities (Johnson 1992:200). He undertook several journeys through Gujarat in 1868, 1870, 1871 and1872-3, before he decided to visit the famous Jain libraries in Jaisalmer and Bhatnir, which were first mentioned by James Tod (1830:282), who himself caught a glimpse of the Hemacandra Bhandār at Patan with the help of his Khartar Gacch Jain Guru (Johnson 1992:197ff ). In his report Bühler described the importance and the difficulties of his task as follows:
These libraries are in part extraordinarily extensive and old. They contain many valuable manuscripts and often even works of the brahmanical literature, which are not available elsewhere. But they are under the supervision of a community committee, a socalled Panch, which only in very rare cases is prepared to grant curious Sanskritists access to its treasures. Mostly it requires a hard struggle, out of which the European not always emerges victorious (Bühler 1883:518).
Particularly interesting is his description of two meetings with Jain monks. The first took place in the Parsvanāth temple in Randol, where Bühler copied some ancient copper plates and bought some scriptures for the Government. He writes:
My agent received these from the monk naturally under the seal of discretion [Bühler does not mention his name]. The latter seemed to be very happy with our visit and the business that was done later. In the afternoon he offered us a return visit, which such saints rarely do, and brought along a disciple, whom he educated to be a monk. According to his statement, he bought him during a famine in the year 1869 from his parents. Although the boy was only nine years old, he knew already large parts of the sacred scriptures by heart (522).
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