Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c8.s1.t3.12

c8.s1.t3.12

From the above references, it may be surmised that Śrī Hemachandra and Mahāmātya Vastupāla allowed the use of paper for writing books, and, therefore, the Jains of Gujarāt were acquainted with paper even in the 12th century. This assumption, could, however, be disputed on the following grounds: (1) The references quoted belong to the 15th and 16th centuries, and, therefore, their testimony to an event which took place four hundred years earlier, is not wholly trustworthy. (2) Muni Punyavijayaji, whose knowledge of Jain manuscripts is unparalleled, stands testimony to the fact that no paper manuscript prior to the 12th and 13th centuries are found in any Jain Jñāna Bhaṇḍār, and the earliest manuscripts on paper, which he had seen, belong to the 13th or beginning of the 14th century. In the Jñāna Bhaṇḍār of Sanghavinā Pādā, Pāṭan, there is a paper manuscript of the Stutichaturviṃśatikā, dated V.S. 1211 (A.D. 1154), but Muni Punyavijayaji is doubtful about the sanguineness of this date. That, however, is not the case with the fragment of a paper manuscript found in the Jain Jñāna Bhaṇḍār at Jaisalmer by Jina-vijayaji.¹³ It is a colophon from a very old manuscript of the Dhvanyāloka-lochana by Ānandavardhanāchārya, written for Jinachandra Sūri. Its date is determined by Jinavijayaji between V.S. 1213—1223 (A.D. 1156—1166). If his surmise is correct, then this solitary folio is perhaps the part of the oldest paper manuscript so far known in India.