Preserving Knowledge: Jambūvijaya and the Jaisalmer Bhaṇḍār

This paper will show how the learned Jain scholar-monk Jambūvijaya (1923-2009) opened the archives to the West while simultaneously revamping indigenous understandings of knowledge-preservation through his enormously successful cataloguing, scanning, copying, and digitizing efforts at the Jaisalmer bhaṇḍār or Jain manuscript libraries located at the Jaisalmer Fort in the Rajasthani desert. Western and Asian scholars, such as Daniel Ingalls, Paul Dundas, Nalini Balbir, Shin Fujinaga, John E. Cort, Maria Heim, and dozens of others, benefited from Jambūvijaya’s intellectual prowess, curiosity, and generosity from the 1950s onward. Jain studies, specifically, would not have advanced without his manuscript cataloguing work, critical editions, and independent writings. His willingness to use modern methods alongside traditional ones and engage local and international scholars opened the treasures of the Jaisalmer bhaṇḍār (and other Jain libraries) to the world. Despite such influence and output, there remain limited studies of his collective influence on Jain and Indological studies.