UK Museum Returns 2,000 Jain Manuscripts

Why this is here: Sir Henry Wellcome’s agent noted a temple library offered the manuscript collection “at a very low price,” suggesting the original owners may have been compelled to sell.

The Wellcome Collection in London returns 2,000 Jain manuscripts to the Jain community in the United Kingdom. Sir Henry Wellcome, a British pharmaceutical entrepreneur, originally purchased the manuscripts during the 15th to 19th centuries. The collection, considered the largest outside of South Asia, will now be owned by the Institute of Jainology, representing 65,000 Jains in the UK.

Roughly 1,200 manuscripts came from a single temple in Pakistan Punjab in 1919, a temple that no longer exists. Dr. Adrian Plau of Wellcome initiated the return after researching the collection’s origins and discovering the manuscripts were acquired for around 5 rupees each.

The Institute of Jainology plans to house the manuscripts at the University of Birmingham, citing the lack of a Jain community or temple in Pakistan as a reason not to return them to their original location. Preservation remains a concern, and researchers still seek to understand the full scope of Wellcome’s acquisition methods.