Outline of Avasyaka Literature

Author(s): Ernst Leumann, George Baumann
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 90

E. Leumann, An outline of the Āvasyaka Literature
[Io] Among the managements administering the various manuscript libraries, the Anglo-Indian ones distinctly stand out in comparison to most of the English ones. Our special admiration goes to the Directors of Education Chatfield (until 1896) and Giles (since 1896) in Bombay. Without their noble generosity in approving loan requests the present work, indeed, would have been impossible as the reader shall soon see. Apparently, in India there is an appreciation in higher places) of the idealistic service indologists are giving to the Government and to the local population through their research. The authorities in the British Museum and, more or less, in other English libraries overlook the fact that these services are also advantageous for England. For the sake of academic research England should also recognize the liberal lending rules in Berlin, Munich, Göttingen and Strassburg. It would certainly be fairer to the heirs of Colebrooke and Wilson who collected these treasures and did not want to see them buried. The English library management, for example, should be reminded in what innumerable ways Wilson offered their manuscripts for research. Hermann Brockhaus, the long-time editor of the Zeitschrift der deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, wrote in 1862 in the foreword to his ‘Kathāsaritsāgara-edition, which, together with Benfey's 'Pantschatantra', opened a new and continually growing field of research:
“H. H. Wilson, a man of noble character, who in the friendliest manner furthered most willingly every academic pursuit and who will be remembered by everyone, including myself, with whom he was associated with warmest admiration."
Of course, I have also received some material in Strassburg from English libraries. The India Office has only restricted, but not given up entirely, its earlier well-known liberality; and from Oxford and Cambridge, at least, you can get certain manuscripts if you make use of English friends. However, it remains a fact that many of the English manuscripts are not obtainable or only under particularly difficult circumstances. How painful this is, particularly for a German representative of Jaina philology, is especially clear on the following page, which shows that the majority of the Jaina manuscripts in England were collected with scholarly enthusiasm by three German scholars in India and brought to Europe.
Even now no coherent studies in Jaina philology can be undertaken with the existing manu-scripts in European libraries. A plan to improve this deplorable state of affairs is necessary. In the autumn of 1892 I had already tried to convince Sir Alfred Lyall, Sir M. Grant-Duff, Whitley Stokes, Bühler and Rost of this and to make it public, all the more, since certain difficulties that originally demanded a postponement have now been solved. At least from London or Berlin those researchers who are well-versed in Jaina studies, and particularly those who live in India or at least have been there, should be requested to acquire the basic material of the Jaina tradition in their Middle Ages for European libraries that is still lacking or hardly available. Original manuscripts of many texts can still be bought; others in old Jaina libraries (particularly in Cambay and Kolhapur) should be copied by carefully supervised copyists. From the earliest period some things are missing, perhaps even much. Very possibly, the South Indian Digambaras (in Śrāvana Belgola and Kolhapur) have preserved several of those canonical texts, which, as shown on p. 3n., were known to their commentator, Aparājita. Naturally, it would be very fruitful for literary historical research if, at least, various voluminous canonical texts of the Digambara recension could be found, since, until now, we know only the Svetāmbara recension. It is certain that research does not profit when only such Jaina texts that are widespread in India reach Europe in new copies. One should beware of such encumbrance and preferably increase the funds for new acquisitions until one day, either in the recommended manner or otherwise, the very critical gap of available manuscripts can be methodologically filled.