Event Date
Lynna Dhanani
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
Department of Religion, Culture and Society
From Palm Leaf to Pixel: Muni Jambūvijaya's Manuscript Preservation Efforts in Jaisalmer
This talk discusses how the learned Jain scholar-monk Jambūvijaya (1923-2009) opened a set of important 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 bhaṇḍārs 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, 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 bhaṇḍārs (and other Jain libraries) to the world. Despite such influence and output, there remains limited studies of his collective influence on Jain and Indological studies.
February 17
12pm
Sproul 912
