Article: Royal Asiatic Society

Library at the Royal Asiatic Society
Image by Helen Porter © Royal Asiatic Society

Although the collections of the Royal Asiatic Society feature numerous items originating in the Indian subcontinent, the society’s holdings comprise items from across Asia. The RAS holds a small yet valuable collection of Jain artefacts, which consists of works of art as well as manuscripts. Several of these pieces are very rare outside India.

Most of the unique material in the RAS library – such as manuscripts, paintings and drawings, and photographs – was donated during the early to mid-19th century. In its early days the society built up a museum, which included some beautiful and rare objects, such as a jade cup owned by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. Later the museum objects were disposed of, mainly to the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum. However, the society has retained its other collections. The society has never purchased material other than books, so its collections have developed from the generosity of many donors.

The library collections include:

• 1700 manuscripts in Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit and other Indian languages, Tibetan, Malay, Javanese and Pali
• 2000 paintings and drawings from all parts of Asia
• 4000 photographs, in particular 19th-century photographs from India and China
• 40,000 books and journals relating to the history, languages and literature, arts and culture of Asia.

As a result of the long British association with India, the library collections relating to South Asia are particularly strong.

James Tod
Image by unknown © public domain

Most of the Jain works at the Royal Asiatic Society are in the Tod Collection. Out of the 190 manuscripts in the collection, 36 relate to Jainism. Some manuscripts contain copies of several different texts, so the collection is made up of nearly 60 individual Jain texts. Of these the most significant is a copy of part of the Kalpa-sūtra with the Kālakācārya-kathā, under the shelfmark Tod MS 34. The text appears to have been copied in VS 1461 (1404 CE), making it a very early copy, and it has several exquisite coloured illustrations.

The collection is named after its original owner, James Tod (1782–1835), who was a well-known soldier and administrator in British India. He served as the East India Company’s political agent to the western Rajputana states in the early 19th century, and while working there he undertook extensive research on Rajput history. Tod later published this research as his exhaustive two-volume work Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (1829/32).

On his return from India Tod was appointed the first Librarian of the newly formed Royal Asiatic Society. He gave the society four large collections of manuscripts, coins, miniature paintings and topographical drawings. Some of the manuscripts were presented to Tod by local rulers, such as Maharana Bhim Singh of Mewar. Many others were copied for him on the orders of rulers of various Rajput states who knew of Tod’s keen interest in Rajput history.

Sūri-mantra-paṭa
Image by Royal Asiatic Society © Royal Asiatic Society Images/RAS, London

The Royal Asiatic Society holds two Jain-related paintings on cloth – a rare yantra or meditation diagram and a cosmological map.

The first cloth painting is a meditation diagram, of a type known as sūri-mantra-paṭa. It was intended for use by members of the Kharatara-gaccha sect.The diagram consists of concentric circles within which are formulas of homage to various deities, types of Jain monks, sacred knowledge and so on, along with magical syllables. If the date on the piece is correct, it was created in 1449 CE, around the time the Kharatara-gaccha was flourishing particularly in Rajasthan. This type of diagram is hardly ever found outside India and it is a particularly early example, making this an exceptionally rare and interesting piece.

The provenance of the yantra is not clear cut. It was found among the papers of Sir Henry Miers Elliott (1808–1853), a civil servant and historian. Miers Elliott worked for the East India Company in various parts of the subcontinent and was interested in Indian culture and history. He died at the Cape of Good Hope on the way home from India and his manuscripts and papers were passed on to various scholars. It seems likely that one of them gave some material to the RAS, including this yantra, although there is no record of the donation.

During the conservation process undertaken for JAINpedia digitisation, two further diagrams were revealed on the back of the yantra’s fabric. They are small labyrinth-shaped squares without any text inscribed.

The other painting on cloth is a map of part of the Jain universe, known as an aḍhāī-dvīpa – Two and A Half Continents – which is an artwork depicting Jain cosmography. It represents in the form of concentric circles three areas of land with two oceans in between. These areas of land represent the realm of human beings, and the diagrams include many details of specific rivers and mountains found on the continents. This painting is of particular interest because it includes information about:

• the pandit who wrote it
• his monastic lineage
• the pandit who owned and used it
• the date it was created, which is 1816 CE.

The aḍhāī-dvīpa was presented to the RAS by Major General William Miles on 17 June 1837. It had been given to him ‘by a Jain priest of the Province of Marwar’. Miles was the author of an article called ‘On the Jains of Gujerat and Marwar’, published in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1835.

Worship of Nami
Image by Royal Asiatic Society © Royal Asiatic Society Images / RAS, London

Comprising painted works of art, the Baxter Collection at the Royal Asiatic Society contains 19 examples of Jain religious art. The 24 Jinas are frequently portrayed in art and can usually be identified only from their personal emblems.

Born in 1793 in Calcutta, Nadir Baxter was the son of a British merchant and his wife. He grew up in India and came to England in 1825. Shortly after his arrival, Baxter donated to the Royal Asiatic Society 47 Indian miniature paintings dating from the early 19th century. The Baxter Collection comprises:

• 19 paintings from a series depicting the 24 Jinas
• 24 paintings from an incomplete ragamala set
• 3 paintings of Hindu gods
• 1 painting of Sri Nathji, with 7 images of the Vallabha sect.

There is no information about the provenance of the artworks.

The Jinas represented in the paintings are given in the table. The Sanskrit term nātha means ‘Lord’ and is usually shortened to nath in modern Indian languages. It is added to the end of a person’s name and is frequently used for deities.