Jinamanjari 1998 09 No 18

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

Page 46

So I had to retract provisionally, putting a good face on it, and borrowed the most important manuscripts, partly to copy myself, and partly to have them copied. But I promised myself to pay the Jaina committee the anger back with interest. During the next days I worked calmly with Dr. Jacobi on the copy of the historical work, which I, because the characters were very archaic, wished to do myself. In doing so I made inquiries about the library in secret through my agent. But no one apart from the committee of the Jainas and the librarian had ever seen it. The reports were thus not very certain or clear.
At last my friend, the Shripuj, helped me. He too could not come to know anything directly, but he said: "If the books, which you have seen, did not contain all the sacred scriptures of our religion, then you have not been shown everything. For all our community libraries must contain the 45 Angas."
That was enough for me. I went to Thakur Juvansingh and told him seriously, that the Jaina committee wanted to make a fool of me. It would be all the same to me, whether the books would be shown or not, but I would report [this] to the Government. Likewise I asked the ministers to come to me and told them the same, only adding that, if the government authorities would come, they could lose their posts.
This, at last, had an effect. One of the ministers, who was himself a Jaina and a member of the committee, began to work on his colleagues, and after various turbulent meetings it was decided to show us the real library, since it couldn't be helped. However, one more trick was tried. The entrance to the real library, a large door made of stone, was painted over, and it was decided to guide me into the next vault where the books were kept which I had seen already, in order to convince me that nothing else was there.
All these pleasant things were reported to me by She Shripuj. He advised me to be very careful and not to step into the vault. But in case I had to do it, he provided me with a detailed plan of all the vaults under the Parishnath [sic] temple.
Finally the day arrived when we were called again to the temple. It was January the 28th. The committee received me solemnly, led by the Jaina minister. The latter spoke exactly as predicted by the Shripuj. I decidedly refused to enter the vaults, to check whether there was still something there. Likewise I forbid my agents to go down and always repeated that the masters of the house would know best where the things were. When the minister saw that I could not be tempted, he stood up with a deep sigh, remarked that he wanted to look around down there himself. He stayed away for about half an hour. Then he returned with
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