Prolegomena to Prakritica et Jainica

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Asiatic Society

Page 48

SCHUBRING: A BRIEF HISTORY OF JAIN RESEARCH
31
The manuscripts described by Weber had come to Berlin thanks to an agreement between Bühler and the Department of Public Instruction at Bombay which had commissioned him and other scholars in their service with the careful examination of private collections and the purchase of manuscripts at government costs. He was allowed to acquire manuscripts even for foreign libraries, provided they were doubles. The examined and purchased manuscripts were catalogued and listed in the valuable reports of R.S. and S.R. Bhandarkar, Bühler, Kielhorn, Peterson, and others. The manuscripts acquired by the Government have been deposited in the Deccan College, now Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Poona. The Jain works among them have been minutely described by H.R. Kapadia in Vol. XVII of the Descriptive Catalogue of the Institute (1935-48). An appendix is devoted to graphic peculiarities (comp. JUB Vol. 5 and 6).14
Bühler, through his Reports, has not only become a patron of Jain philology indirectly, but thanks to a number of original works and essays has been a direct promotor in our field, as, in the course of years, Weber, too, had been, and, moreover, they both have inspired younger scholars. Jacobi's critical edition of the “Kalpasūtra of Bhadrabāhu” (AKM 7, 1; 1879) clearly shows traces of Bühler's spirit, while Leumann's "Aupapātika Sūtra" (AKM 8, 2; 1883)-originally a thesis of Leipzig-is influenced by Weber and the Berlin Collection. It may be mentioned here that Weber successfully co-operated with Leumann in his great essay referred to above. The editions
14. Weber already dealt with this topic (Verz. II 3, p. XII ff.).
Leumann discussed the influence of the shape of the leaves upon the text (ZDMG 46, 583f.). Miniatures in manuscripts were treated by Hüttemann, Baessler-Archiv. 4, 2; Brown, Jaina Gazette 28, pp. 77-83 (reviewed by Hirananda Sastri ibid., 113f.); Brown, Kalaka (824) with a bibliography. The Bibliography of Indian Archaeology may also be consulted.