The Prince of Wales visits newly-launched Jainpedia project at the V&A
19th November 2010

The Prince of Wales visited at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London to view the JAINpedia exhibition and see the JAINpedia online digital resources on 18th November 2010. Launched by the The Institute of Jainology, the JAINpedia project has been supported by a £375,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF and comprises the digitisation of five thousand year old religious texts on Jainism. The project now in its third year has exhibitions running at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Library, and still to come at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

At the V&A event The Prince was greeted by Mr Paul Ruddock, Chairman of the V&A, and Mr Nemu Chandaria, Deputy Chairman of the IoJ and then introduced to the Directors of the IoJ and key staff at the V&A.Mr Nemu Chandaria said, "the Jain community is grateful to His Royal Highness for visiting the JAINpedia exhibition. His warmth and interest in the project and the Jain community has made this a very special day for us."

The Prince was guided through the V&A exhibition by curator Nick Barnard and JAINpedia expert Prof. Nalini Balbir of the University of Paris. He spent several moments discussing Jain cosmology and 15th century manuscripts featuring the lives of the Jain teachers. His Royal Highness was then shown how the manuscripts are made available through the JAINpedia site. Over 100 members of the Jain community were invited to meet His Royal Highness during the visit as well as stakeholders from the British Library, the Wellcome Trust and the Bodleian Library. The event concluded with speeches from Beth McKillop, Deputy Director of the V&A, Mehool Sanghrajka Director of the IoJ and the JAINpedia Project and finally by Wesley Kerr, Chairman of the Heritage Lottery Fund London Committee.

About the Institute of Jainology (IoJ)

The IoJ is an international organisation established in 1983. In 1990 the presentation of the 'Jain Declaration on Nature' to H R H Prince Philip, repositioned Jainism as the eight faith of the world and marked its entry to the World Wide Fund for Nature. The JAINpedia project created by the IoJ will be a first for Jain heritage as there is no other online public resource that has worked with the key holders of Jain artefacts in the UK or worldwide.