A Visit to the Āmer Śāstra Bhaṇḍār, Jaipur

On 12 October 2026, Jason Birch and I visited the Āmer Śāstra Bhaṇḍār in Jaipur, a Digambara Jain manuscript library. Our aim was to see a manuscript of the Suśrutasaṃhitā that had been recorded there in the mid-twentieth century.

The library

The Āmer Śāstra Bhaṇḍār has been housed in several places in Rajasthan over its history. It was formerly known as the Bhaṭṭāraka Devendrakīrti Bhaṇḍār and was originally kept in the Digambara Jain temple of Neminātha at Amber. It was later moved to the Mahāvīra Jaina Bhavana in Jaipur, and then to Śrī Mahāvīrjī.

Today the collection is hosted by the Apabhraṃśa Sāhitya Akādamī evaṃ Pustakālaya (the Apabhraṃśa Literary Academy and Library), an institution of the Digambar Jain Atishay Kshetra Shri Mahaviraji dedicated to teaching Apabhraṃśa, the language of many Jain literary and religious works. The address is Block B, Malviya Nagar, Jaipur, Rajasthan 302017, not far from Jaipur’s airport.

Catalogues and studies

The library was catalogued by Kastūrcanda Kāslīvāl in 1949, in the first volume of his Rājasthān ke Jaina Śāstra Bhaṇḍārom kī grantha sūcī (Biswas, no. 0891, vol. 1):

A year later Kāslīvāl published a companion volume, the Praśasti Saṅgraha, collecting the colophons (praśasti) of manuscripts in the same collection (Biswas, no. 0427):

Important contemporary information on the library, its contents and its history is given by Ulrich Timme Kragh:

• Kragh, Ulrich Timme (2013), ‘Localized Literary History: Sub-Text and Cultural Heritage in the Āmer Śāstrabhaṇḍār, a Digambara Manuscript Repository in Jaipur’, International Journal of Jaina Studies 9/3: 1–53.
• Kragh, Ulrich Timme, and Abhishek Jain (2019), ‘A Preliminary Study on the Indian Grammar Manuscripts of the Āmer Śāstrabhaṇḍār in Jaipur’, Przegląd Orientalistyczny 2019/1: 3–21.

The Suśrutasaṃhitā manuscript

Kāslīvāl’s list (p. 154) records a single manuscript of the Suśrutasaṃhitā, containing only the Kalpasthāna, in 21 folios:

The entry reads:

भाषा-संस्कृत। पत्र संख्या २१. साइज १०॥×४॥ इञ्च। लिपि संवत् १७०२. केवल कल्पस्थान ही है।

That is: language Sanskrit; 21 folios; size 10½ × 4½ inches; copied in Saṃvat 1702 (1645/46 CE); contains only the Kalpasthāna.

Our visit

At the library we met the Director, Smt. Shakuntala Jain, who received us kindly.

Unfortunately, the manuscript recorded in Kāslīvāl’s catalogue is no longer in the collection. Smt. Jain produced a handwritten list of the Āyurvedic titles held in the library, and the Suśrutasaṃhitā was not among them. We were not able to photograph the list. It seems, sadly, that MS Jaipur Āmer Śāstra Bhaṇḍār Kāslīvāl 154 was lost at some time between 1950 and 2026.

We thank Smt. Shakuntala Jain for her welcome and for her help in searching the collection.