The Jains came relatively late to the adoption of print technology. Whereas most other religious communities were extensively printing books and pamphlets using lithography and movable type by the middle of the nineteenth century, it was not until the 1870s that we see significant Jain printing. Much of this innovation on the part of the Śvetāmbar Mūrtipūjak Jains took place not in their traditional Gujarati and Rajasthani homelands, but in the relatively new metropoles of Bombay and Calcutta. The first two sustained Śvetāmbar Mūrtipūjak Jain print projects were the four-volume Prakaraṇ Ratnākar published by Bhīmsingh Māṇak (Māṇek) in Bombay between 1876 and 1881, and the twenty-three books of the Āgama Saṅgrah sponsored by Rāy Dhanpatisingh Bahādur of Murshidabad and printed in Calcutta, Bombay, Ahmedabad, Banaras and Murshidabad between 1874 and 1900.
Both projects faced opposition from more conservative elements in Jain society. We do not have the texts of any of this opposition, but we can deduce the basic shape of the arguments against the use of print technology by analyzing the arguments advanced by Bhīmsingh Māṇak and Rāy Dhanpatisingh Bahādur in defense of their projects. Each of them included lengthy discussions of the printing of Jain texts in the prefatory materials in early volumes that they published.
The opposition was not a blanket form of Luddite opposition to a new technology. The printing of books that were newly written with the intention of their being printed as books was not a problem. Nor did Jains eschew reading printed books on non-religious subjects. Rather, some Jains objected to the printing of older pre-print Jain religious texts. Many of the details of the arguments for and against printing were specifically Jain, but in their larger outlines they shared much with other contested adoptions of print in South Asia and elsewhere, and so help us to see larger cultural frameworks that enveloped the history of the book in nineteenth and early twentieth century South Asia.
Jain opposition stemmed in part from hesitation to touch printed books. One could never be sure who had been involved in the mechanical processes of printing a book, and therefore whether the physical book itself was impure and therefore polluting to the touch. The printing of books also allowed for reading practices that contravened the orthodox ritual setting for reading scriptures. Unlike a hand-written manuscript, which ideally was to be read in the premises of a library or temple, and in a ritualized setting in which the reader first bathed and donned pure pūjā clothes, a printed book could be read by anyone, Jain and non-Jain alike, and in settings that lacked both ritual propriety and purity. The reading of a printed Jain text, therefore, could be a source of demeritorious karma.
Dhanpatisingh advanced the following arguments in defense of printing the Āgamas:
- Due to the ignorance that was widespread in contemporary Jain society, there was a pressing need to increase knowledge (jñān vṛddhi).
- To pursue knowledge, one needs intellectual tools (sāmagrī); these tools are found in printed books.
- He gave an historical argument, tracing four periods in the history of preserving the Jain Āgamas:
- They were originally memorized (kaṇṭhasth).
- In 454 CE the texts were committed to writing on palm-leaf with an iron stylus under Devarddhigaṇi Kṣamāśramaṇa at the council of Valabhi.
- The medieval period saw the adoption of the new technology of writing on paper with a pen.
- In the current age, there is the new technology of the mechanical printing press.
- Print was used by European religions successfully to spread their religions in India. Jains should do the same.
- Karmic merit (puṇya) comes from printing Āgamas.
- There is no karmic harm (doṣ) to either the printer or knowledge itself through the use of print technology.
- Texts written by the ācāryas of the past should not be kept hidden (gupt).
- Jainism will regain its youthful status (yuvāvasthā) through the printing of the sacred texts.
Bhīmsingh Mānak made many of the same arguments, and added some additional ones:
- It is the duty of all Jains to preserve and increase knowledge (jñān).
- The proper practice of compassion (dayā) requires proper knowledge.
- According to the Daśavaikālika Sūtra, ritual action (kriyā) without knowledge is fruitless on the path to liberation.
- For the monks to lead the Jain community they need access to scriptural knowledge (śruta-jñān).
Looking at the Jain arguments for and against the adoption of the new technology of the printing press helps us understand better how the Jain community grappled with elements of that loosely defined historical process known as global modernity. Looking at the arguments allows us to see how different realms of Jain value were involved: ethics and karma theory, but also sacred knowledge and compassion. Finally, this paper allows the papers of the other panelists to be located within a longer historical duration, as we can see how Jains have responded both positively and negatively in more recent decades to other technologies associated with modernity and now post-modernity such as mechanized travel, mechanized recording, and now the digital realm.
The Jains came relatively late to the adoption of print technology. Whereas most other religious communities in South Asia were extensively printing books and pamphlets using lithography and movable type by the middle of the nineteenth century, it was not until the 1870s that we see significant Jain printing. The first two sustained Śvetāmbar Mūrtipūjak Jain print projects were the four-volume Prakaraṇ Ratnākar published by Bhīmsingh Māṇak (Māṇek) in Bombay between 1876 and 1881, and the twenty-three books of the Āgama Saṅgrah sponsored by Rāy Dhanpatisingh Bahādur of Murshidabad and printed in Calcutta, Bombay, Ahmedabad, Banaras and Murshidabad between 1874 and 1900. Both projects faced opposition from more conservative elements in Jain society. This paper analyzes the publishers’ arguments in defense of the use of mechanical print to publish Jain religious texts.