heritage/patan-and-khambhat-manuscript-libraries.jpg · 1200×800Patan, then Anahilavada, was the capital of the Chaulukya kings and the home of Acharya Hemachandra, who served Jayasimha Siddharaja and Kumarapala in the 12th century. When Hemachandra completed his grammar, the Siddha-Hema, the king had it installed in the state library at Patan, copies made and sent out, and examinations held on it every year. Around such work grew the habit of copying, correcting and storing books.
Jain gyan bhandars, or knowledge-houses, kept manuscripts in wooden boxes and cloth wrappers, often in temple basements where the air stayed cool and dry. Some were closed for decades at a time. In the last century scholar-monks such as Muni Punyavijaya and Muni Jambuvijaya persuaded trustees to open them and catalogued what they found. The Hemchandracharya Gyan Mandir at Patan now holds about 25,000 Sanskrit and Prakrit manuscripts.
Khambhat, the old port of Cambay, was another centre of learning, with 16 Jain temples and the Shantinatha Jain Bhandara, whose palm-leaf manuscripts Muni Punyavijaya described in a catalogue published at Baroda in 1961. Between them these bhandars saved more than scripture: Sanskrit grammar, poetry, mathematics, medicine and astronomy survive in copies made by Jain hands, along with the illustrated Kalpasutra manuscripts for which Gujarat is famous.
