Dear Colleagues, Patricia and Marie-Hélène, 

It was fascinating to see that the Jain Bhandara tradition is now to be carried on in the UK with the return of manuscripts from the Wellcome collection to the Jain community in the UK.

I could never have imagined this happening when I worked at the Wellcome from 1991 to 1996 to create a descriptive catalogue of their Hindi manuscripts. It is as if the landscape has changed completely it seems since I first went into the stacks in the Wellcome library depository over 30 years ago and started to unwrap and catalogue manuscripts which were mostly in still in their original pre 1920 newspaper packaging.
  
I was also very struck by the way the Times newspaper report on it highlighted works which I found in the collection and catalogued, and published articles and about book chapters. Such as the Hindi medical works and the the work by Muni Ratanchand on a Jain Christian dialogue in the mid-nineteenth century. Over the years I have also seem some of the Wellcome's other manuscripts, such as probably the earliest illustrated Rajasthani manuscript of Nath-Siddha and Sant verses from 1714 which was up to that time stored in a box with a label on it saying something like it was a 'Buddhist Wizard's book'.  

I hope that this re-development of the Jain manuscript Bhandara tradition in the UK will mark the start of future digitisation of these manuscripts and world-wide open access to the digital resources collected.

Peter

____________________

Peter G. Friedlander

Honorary Associate Professor and Reader in Hindi

School of Culture, History & Language

College of Asia & the Pacific

The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 2600

CRICOS Provider: 00120C | ABN: 52 234 063 906

T: 61+ 2 6125 3126

E: peter.friedlander@anu.edu.au


On Tuesday 19 May 2026 at 03:27:11 am AEST, Marie-Hélène Gorisse via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:


Dear Patricia,

 

Thanks a lot for sharing the news!

 

Indeed, last Thursday at the House of Commons was a historic moment as the Wellcome Collection restituted 2,000 precious Jain manuscripts to the Jain community represented by the Institute of Jainology.

I was deeply honoured to co-sign this agreement as the Assistant Professor in Jain Studies at the University of Birmingham, since our Dharmanath Network in Jain studies has been asked to shelter this precious heritage as we are working with the community to secure that this return has maximum impact for students, researchers, members of the community, and for the general public.

 

It will take a few more months for the manuscripts to be fully catalogued and make their way to Birmingham, but I will be very much looking forwards to updating you as this goes on!

 

As for now, you can find all the infos concerning our Jain Studies Network here:

https://globalphilosophyofreligion.com/2026/05/18/the-dharmanath-network-in-jain-studies/


Kind regards,

 

Marie-Helene


--
Marie-Hélène Gorisse

Dharmanath Assistant Professor in Jain Studies
Co-PI of the Templeton Global Philosophy of Religion project
See our exciting upcoming events here: https://globalphilosophyofreligion.com/events/
School of Philosophy, Theology and Religion
University of Birmingham


Le ven. 15 mai 2026 à 06:04, Patricia SAUTHOFF via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> a écrit :
Wellcome to transfer 2,000 Jain texts to the Dharmanath Network in Jain Studies at the University of Birmingham.




Patricia Sauthoff
司徒 雛菊 
Assistant Professor
Department of History
Hong Kong Baptist University 


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