The Return of the Sacred?
In a historic moment for cultural heritage management, the Wellcome Collection in London announced a commitment to return over 2,000 rare Jain manuscripts to the global Jain community. Believed to be the largest collection of Jain manuscripts held outside South Asia, the texts span four centuries, from the 15th to the 19th century. Written in Prakrit, Sanskrit, Gujarati, Rajasthani, and early Hindi scripts, the archive covers a vast expanse of human knowledge—encompassing not only religious scriptures but also treatises on literature, medicine, philosophy, and culture. Among the most notable items is a rare, magnificently illustrated 16th-century copy of the Kalpasutra, alongside a fragile 1688 copy of Nainsukh’s Vaidyamanotsav (“A Celebration of Physicians”), which is arguably the earliest surviving copy of the first medical treatise written in early Hindi.
However, the celebratory nature of this modern restitution cannot be divorced from the troubled colonial provenance of the items. The vast majority of these documents, around 1,200 manuscripts, were amassed in 1919 by agents working for the British pharmaceutical entrepreneur Sir Henry Wellcome. Acting under the structural imbalances of colonial rule, an agent discovered the entire holding of a Jain temple library in a region described as ‘Malwa’ within the Punjab. Historical correspondence reveals that the agent wrote back to London noting that he had been offered the collection at a drastically low price, explicitly writing that if the texts “were in learned hands they would not part with it.”
Rather than respecting the sanctity of the repository, instructions from corporate headquarters in London directed the agent to haggle for an even lower price. Ultimately, the manuscripts were bought for five rupees per text—a transaction executed under economic coercion and against the ‘best interests of the original owners.’ For over a century, these sacred texts remained largely undisturbed in London’s storage vaults, detached from the spiritual and academic communities that gave them meaning, serving as silent symbols of colonial-era extraction.
Deconstructing the “Country of Origin” Paradigm in Restitution Law
The Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Wellcome Trust, the Institute of Jainology, and the University of Birmingham establishes a unique framework for cultural restitution. Traditionally, international heritage disputes, especially those governed by frameworks like the 1970 UNESCO Convention, rely heavily on a state-centric model, where illicitly acquired artefacts are repatriated directly to their geopolitical “country of origin.” The present agreement disrupts that paradigm. Instead of sending the manuscripts back to a nation-state, the Wellcome Collection is transferring ownership to the Institute of Jainology, deemed to be representing the faith community, and physically relocating the texts to the Dharmanath Network in Jain Studies at the University of Birmingham.
This model problematizes the classic country-of-origin debate by shifting the legal and ethical focus from geography to community. The state-centric approach often operates under the flawed assumption that modern nation-state borders perfectly align with historical, religious, and cultural identities. When heritage is tied to contemporary Westphalian sovereignty, the communities who produced, used, and revered those objects can be sidelined.
By prioritizing the faith community over a political territory, the Wellcome agreement introduces a form of “de-territorialized restitution.” It appears to say that for sacred, living heritage, the rightful owners are the people for whom the items hold spiritual and ontological significance. This shift recognizes that an international diaspora can serve as a legitimate, legally recognized custodian of cultural heritage, challenging international law to evolve beyond rigid border lines and embrace a human-rights-centred approach to cultural property.
Whether this move irks the large Jain community in India, is yet to be seen.
The Ghost of Punjab: Vanished Temples and the Geopolitics of Faith
The necessity of this alternative restitution pathway becomes clear when examining the geography of the manuscripts’ origin. The single Jain temple from which Sir Henry Wellcome’s agents extracted the 1,200 texts was located in a part of the Punjab that, following the bloody cartography of the 1947 Partition, became part of Pakistan. Today, that original temple no longer exists. The geopolitical reality of the region has also changed fundamentally; Pakistan is an espoused Islamic Republic where the contemporary Jain population has effectively ceased to exist, and the infrastructure to preserve non-Islamic minority heritage is strained.
Had the traditional “country of origin” rule been blindly applied, the manuscripts may have been sent to Pakistan, a destination that raises understandable concerns regarding their long-term physical safety and preservation. In an environment devoid of a practicing Jain faith community, the manuscripts would be vulnerable to neglect, political volatility, or even theological censorship.
Even representatives of the Jain community have acknowledged this reality. Leaders from the Institute of Jainology noted that while colonial extraction was unethical, the controlled environment of London paradoxically shielded the texts from the catastrophic turmoil and destruction that ravaged post-independence Punjab. Returning the texts to a location where there is neither a standing temple nor a devotee to read them would be ironical.
It brings to the fore another vital lesson that restitution must ensure the survival and vitality of the heritage, rather than abandoning it to a geographical location that has become hostile or indifferent to its existence.
The Need For Transnational Academic Collaborations
The placement of the collection within the Dharmanath Network at the University of Birmingham, the first research institution in the UK wholly financed by global Jain communities, marks the beginning of a new chapter in cultural politics. Restitution is to be and should always be an ongoing, collaborative relationship. To maximize the impact of this return, the next logical step in the politics of restitution involves bridging the gap between the diaspora in the UK and the intellectually rich academic ecosystems of South Asia.
A powerful model for the future could involve a formal partnership between the University of Birmingham and a premier research university in India, such as Gujarat University or Nalanda University, which boast deep expertise in Prakrit and Indological studies. By pooling resources, a joint Indo-British academic initiative could pioneer a comprehensive digital restitution project. Advanced high-resolution digitization, spectroscopic imaging of the 15th-century illustrations, and collaborative translation efforts could be distributed across borders.
Scholars in India, working with international researchers and faith representatives in Birmingham, could help decode rare texts like the Vaidyamanotsav, blending traditional community exegesis with modern digital humanities. This cross-continental teamwork would also ensure that while physical stewardship remains within a well-funded, community-backed hub in the UK, the intellectual and spiritual heritage is repatriated globally.
Ultimately, the Wellcome Collection has set a high bar for the museum sector, proving that compassionate, creative restitution can transform historical wounds into transnational avenues of shared knowledge.