UK museum returns 2,000 manuscripts to Jain community in landmark restitution agreement

TOI Correspondent from London: Two thousand Jain manuscripts bought by British pharmaceutical entrepreneur Sir Henry Wellcome, which had been held by the Wellcome Collection in London, a museum set up after his death to hold all the items he had collected across the world, are now being returned to the Jain community.

The collection, believed to be the largest of Jain manuscripts outside South Asia, spans the 15th to 19th centuries.

They are being transferred to the Dharmanath Network in Jain Studies at the University of Birmingham and will be owned by the Institute of Jainology, which represents 65,000 Jains in the UK.

Sir Henry amassed a considerable fortune and collected thousands of manuscripts, medical equipment, paintings and sculptures. He bought them at auctions and agents also travelled the world to acquire them for him. He left everything in his will to the Wellcome Trust.

Around 1,200 of the manuscripts were bought in 1919 from a single Jain temple in Pakistan Punjab; the temple no longer exists.

“One of his agents came across this collection in a temple library in what he describes as ‘Malwa’,” explained Wellcome’s information lead Dr Adrian Plau, who researched and initiated the landmark restitution.

“The agent wrote back to the London company secretary and said he had been offered this collection at a very low price and actually uses the phrase ‘If it was in learned hands they would not part with it.’ It is unclear who he spoke to. The instructions from London were to try and get it even cheaper. In the end it seems he paid around Rs 5 per manuscript. That is very low,” Plau said.

The manuscripts include the 1854 treatise “On English People, the Servants of Jesus” by Ratanchand, Nainsukh’s Vaidyamanotsav, or “A Celebration of Physicians”, dated 1688 (possibly the earliest surviving copy of the 1592 text) and an early 16th century illustrated copy of the Kalpasutra.

“If you look at the turmoil post-Partition, it is unlikely these would have survived if they had stayed in Punjab, and without preservation they would have massively deteriorated,” explained Institute of Jainology managing trustee Mehool Sanghrajka. “We are grateful to Wellcome for the care and respect they have shown these texts. It made little sense sending them back to the area where they came from as there is no Jain community nor any Jain temple in Pakistan now,” he said, adding Birmingham University, with its global outreach, seemed like the obvious choice.

“The community is overjoyed and this will play a huge part in the drive for Jain academia,” he said.