The Manuscript Treasures of Jaisalmer

Among the greatest contributions of Jainism to Indian civilisation is the preservation of manuscripts, and no collection embodies this achievement more vividly than the celebrated Jain libraries, or bhandars, of Jaisalmer in the desert of western Rajasthan. Housed in this remote fortress city, these repositories preserve one of the oldest and most valuable collections of manuscripts in India, safeguarding texts that in some cases survive nowhere else.

The Jain tradition has always placed extraordinary emphasis on the preservation of the written word. After the Svetambara canon was committed to writing at the Council of Valabhi around the fifth century CE, the copying, protection and storage of manuscripts became a sacred duty, an act of religious merit through which the teachings of the Tirthankaras could be handed on to future generations. Wealthy lay patrons endowed libraries, and monastic and community institutions maintained them with great care, giving rise to the network of bhandars across western India.

Jaisalmer, founded in the twelfth century and long a prosperous centre on the desert trade routes, became home to some of the most important of these collections. Its very remoteness and the aridity of the desert climate proved advantageous for the survival of fragile manuscripts, protecting them both from the ravages of humidity and, to some degree, from the upheavals that affected more accessible regions. The Jain bhandars of Jaisalmer thus preserved materials of exceptional antiquity.

The collections include manuscripts written on palm leaf, the oldest medium of Indian book production, as well as later works on paper. Among the palm-leaf manuscripts are texts of great age, some dating back many centuries, comprising canonical scriptures, commentaries, philosophical treatises, narrative literature, grammar, poetics, and works on a wide range of subjects, in Prakrit, Sanskrit and later vernaculars. The libraries preserve not only Jain religious texts but also works of general Indian learning, for the Jain bhandars were repositories of knowledge in the broadest sense, and in some cases they safeguarded copies of secular and even non-Jain works that would otherwise have been lost.

The value of these collections to scholarship is immense. Because the Jain bhandars preserved texts so faithfully and over such long periods, they have yielded works and versions of works unknown from any other source, illuminating the history of Indian literature, philosophy, science and religion far beyond the boundaries of Jainism itself. Scholars have recovered from the Jaisalmer and related libraries rare texts, early recensions and unique commentaries of great importance.

Many of the finest manuscripts are also works of art, illustrated with miniature paintings in the distinctive style of western Indian and later Rajasthani painting. Illuminated Jain manuscripts, especially copies of the Kalpasutra and other revered texts, with their gold, brilliant colours and stylised figures, constitute an important chapter in the history of Indian painting, and the bhandars preserve outstanding examples.

The Jaisalmer bhandars are part of a wider constellation of Jain manuscript libraries in western India, including important collections at Patan, Cambay (Khambhat) and elsewhere in Gujarat and Rajasthan, together forming an unrivalled inheritance of preserved learning. In modern times, efforts have been made to catalogue, conserve and study these treasures, and to make their contents available to scholarship while respecting their sacred character.

The manuscript treasures of Jaisalmer stand as an enduring monument to the Jain devotion to knowledge and its preservation, a devotion that has enriched not only the Jain tradition but the whole heritage of Indian civilisation.