Motilal Banarsidass
Encyclopedia
Motilal Banarsidass is a leading Indian publishing house on Sanskrit
and Indology
since 1903, located in Delhi
, India
. It publishes and distributes serials, monographs, and scholarly publications on Asian religion
, philosophy
, history
, culture
, arts
, architecture
, archaeology
, language
, literature
, linguistics
, musicology
, mysticism
, yoga
, tantra
, occult
, medicine
, astronomy
, astrology
and other related subjects, and to date have published over 5,000 works.
Its noted publications are the 100 volumes of the Mahapurana
s, Sacred Books of the East
(50 Volumes) edited by Max Müller
; Bibliotheca Buddhica (30 Volumes in 32 pts); Ramcharitmanas with Hindi and English translation, the Manusmriti in ten volumes and the Sanskrit lexicon, and Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies (7 volumes). It also brings out books based on research and study conducted at organisations such as ICHR, IGNCA, ICCR
, and has a turnover of approximately Rs 5–6 crore, roughly 75% coming from exports .
in 1903 by Lala Motilal Jain, a descendant of the family of court jewellers to Maharaja Ranjit Singh
in Amritsar. Motilal borrowed Rs. 27 from his wife's savings that she had earned from her knitting work, to start a bookshop selling Sanskrit books in 'Said Mitha Bazar' in Lahore. He named it after his eldest son Motilal Banarsidass Jain, who later took charge of the publishing business. In 1911, MLBD opened a branch at Mai Sewan Bazar, Amritsar
, under the supervision of Lala Sundarlal Jain, another son of Lala Motilal Jain, though after the untimely death of Lala Banarasidass in 1912, Sundarlal Jain, his only surviving brother had to close this establishment and relocate to Lahore to look after the family business. Soon he was joined by his young nephew Shantilal Jain, who had just finished school, who eventually became the company's chairman. Soon a printing unit was also set up and the publishing house was established.
In 1937, a branch was started in Patna at the suggestion of Rajendra Prasad
. Subsequently during the Partition of India
a riot burnt down the Lahore shop. Post independence, the family moved to India and initially stayed at Bikaner and Patna, before moving to Varanasi in 1950, where it set up shop in 1951, and finally shifted base to Delhi in 1958.
In 1992, Shantilal Jain was awarded the Padma Shri
by Govt. of India, the first ever Padma award for outstanding community service through publishing . Today Shantilal's son Rajendra Prakash Jain and his four brothers and their sons, along with their mother, Leela Jain, who is company's Chairperson, run the business .
In 2003, the company celebrated its centenary at a function in Chennai
, where Kanchi
Sankaracharya, Jayendra Saraswathi
, honoured three Sankrit scholars: R. Balasubramaniam, B.M.K. Sharma and K.V. Sharma., at function held at Bangalore
, Governor of Karnataka, T.N. Chaturvedi, felicitated centenarian
, Sudhakar Chaturvedi
, S.M.S. Chari, and B.K. Krishnamurthy of Hyderabad for their contribution to Indology, and eminent astrologer
, B.V. Raman
, was honoured posthumously.
North Campus area, behind Kirori Mal College
. It houses Indological literature of around 30,000 titles. The company has branches at Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Varanasi and Patna
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
and Indology
Indology
Indology is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent , and as such is a subset of Asian studies....
since 1903, located in Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. It publishes and distributes serials, monographs, and scholarly publications on Asian religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
, arts
ARts
aRts, which stands for analog Real time synthesizer, is an audio framework that is no longer under development. It is best known for previously being used in KDE to simulate an analog synthesizer....
, architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
, language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
, literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, musicology
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
, mysticism
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
, yoga
Yoga
Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...
, tantra
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
, occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
, medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
, astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, astrology
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
and other related subjects, and to date have published over 5,000 works.
Its noted publications are the 100 volumes of the Mahapurana
Mahapurana
Mahapurana may refer to:* one of the 18 major Hindu Puranas*Mahapurana , a well-known 9th century Jain text by Jinasena...
s, Sacred Books of the East
Sacred Books of the East
The Sacred Books of the East is a monumental 50-volume set of English translations of Asian religious writings, edited by Max Müller and published by the Oxford University Press between 1879 and 1910...
(50 Volumes) edited by Max Müller
Max Müller
Friedrich Max Müller , more regularly known as Max Müller, was a German philologist and Orientalist, one of the founders of the western academic field of Indian studies and the discipline of comparative religion...
; Bibliotheca Buddhica (30 Volumes in 32 pts); Ramcharitmanas with Hindi and English translation, the Manusmriti in ten volumes and the Sanskrit lexicon, and Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies (7 volumes). It also brings out books based on research and study conducted at organisations such as ICHR, IGNCA, ICCR
Iccr
ICCR stands for:* Indian Council for Cultural Relations* The Interdisciplinary Centre for Comparative Research in the Social Sciences* Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility* International Centre for Classroom Research...
, and has a turnover of approximately Rs 5–6 crore, roughly 75% coming from exports .
History
Motilal Banarsidass Publishers was first established in LahoreLahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
in 1903 by Lala Motilal Jain, a descendant of the family of court jewellers to Maharaja Ranjit Singh
Ranjit Singh
Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji was the first Maharaja of the Sikh Empire.-Early life:...
in Amritsar. Motilal borrowed Rs. 27 from his wife's savings that she had earned from her knitting work, to start a bookshop selling Sanskrit books in 'Said Mitha Bazar' in Lahore. He named it after his eldest son Motilal Banarsidass Jain, who later took charge of the publishing business. In 1911, MLBD opened a branch at Mai Sewan Bazar, Amritsar
Amritsar
Amritsar is a city in the northern part of India and is the administrative headquarters of Amritsar district in the state of Punjab, India. The 2001 Indian census reported the population of the city to be over 1,500,000, with that of the entire district numbering 3,695,077...
, under the supervision of Lala Sundarlal Jain, another son of Lala Motilal Jain, though after the untimely death of Lala Banarasidass in 1912, Sundarlal Jain, his only surviving brother had to close this establishment and relocate to Lahore to look after the family business. Soon he was joined by his young nephew Shantilal Jain, who had just finished school, who eventually became the company's chairman. Soon a printing unit was also set up and the publishing house was established.
In 1937, a branch was started in Patna at the suggestion of Rajendra Prasad
Rajendra Prasad
Dr. Rajendra Prasad was an Indian politician and educator. He was one of the architects of the Indian Republic, having drafted its first constitution and serving as the first president of independent India...
. Subsequently during the Partition of India
Partition of India
The Partition of India was the partition of British India on the basis of religious demographics that led to the creation of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan and the Union of India on 14 and 15...
a riot burnt down the Lahore shop. Post independence, the family moved to India and initially stayed at Bikaner and Patna, before moving to Varanasi in 1950, where it set up shop in 1951, and finally shifted base to Delhi in 1958.
In 1992, Shantilal Jain was awarded the Padma Shri
Padma Shri
Padma Shri is the fourth highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan...
by Govt. of India, the first ever Padma award for outstanding community service through publishing . Today Shantilal's son Rajendra Prakash Jain and his four brothers and their sons, along with their mother, Leela Jain, who is company's Chairperson, run the business .
In 2003, the company celebrated its centenary at a function in Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
, where Kanchi
Kanchi matha
The Kanchi math is a Hindu monastic institutionlocated in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu, one of the fivepancha-bhUta-sthalas...
Sankaracharya, Jayendra Saraswathi
Jayendra Saraswathi
Sri Jayendra Saraswathi Swamigal is the 69th Shankaracharya of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham....
, honoured three Sankrit scholars: R. Balasubramaniam, B.M.K. Sharma and K.V. Sharma., at function held at Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
, Governor of Karnataka, T.N. Chaturvedi, felicitated centenarian
Centenarian
A centenarian is a person who is or lives beyond the age of 100 years. Because current average life expectancies across the world are less than 100, the term is invariably associated with longevity. Much rarer, a supercentenarian is a person who has lived to the age of 110 or more, something only...
, Sudhakar Chaturvedi
Sudhakar Chaturvedi
-Books in Kannada:* Upakarmada Bhavya Sandesha* Halavu Nenapugalu * Murtipooje Jignyaase-External links:* * * , felicitated in Raj Bhavan, Jan 27, 2010* *...
, S.M.S. Chari, and B.K. Krishnamurthy of Hyderabad for their contribution to Indology, and eminent astrologer
Astrologer
An astrologer practices one or more forms of astrology. Typically an astrologer draws a horoscope for the time of an event, such as a person's birth, and interprets celestial points and their placements at the time of the event to better understand someone, determine the auspiciousness of an...
, B.V. Raman
Bangalore Venkata Raman
Dr. B.V. Raman was a world renowned astrologer & author. He was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, London, and a Member of the Royal Asiatic Society. He also held a string of titles such as Abhinava Varahamihira, Jyotisha Bhanu, Jyotisha Vignana Marthanda, Jyotisha Ratna, Abhinava...
, was honoured posthumously.
Shops
Its main shop in Delhi is on Bungalow Road, Jawahar Nagar, in the University of DelhiUniversity of Delhi
The University of Delhi is a central university situated in Delhi, India and is funded by Government of India. Established in 1922, it offers courses at the undergraduate and post-graduate level. Vice-President of India Mohammad Hamid Ansari is the Chancellor of the university...
North Campus area, behind Kirori Mal College
Kirori Mal College
Kirori Mal College is a constituent college of the University of Delhi, located in New Delhi, India that was established in 1954. It offers undergraduate and graduate courses in science, arts, liberal arts and commerce and is known for being one of the most politically active colleges in University...
. It houses Indological literature of around 30,000 titles. The company has branches at Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Varanasi and Patna
Publications
- Sacred Books of the EastSacred Books of the EastThe Sacred Books of the East is a monumental 50-volume set of English translations of Asian religious writings, edited by Max Müller and published by the Oxford University Press between 1879 and 1910...
(50 Volumes) edited by Max MüllerMax MüllerFriedrich Max Müller , more regularly known as Max Müller, was a German philologist and Orientalist, one of the founders of the western academic field of Indian studies and the discipline of comparative religion...
(reprints, originally Oxford University PressOxford University PressOxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
); - Indian KavyaKavyaKavya refers to the Sanskrit literary style used by Indian court poets flourishing from the first half of the seventh century AD. This literary style is characterised by abundant usage of figures of speech, metaphors, similes, and hyperbole to create its emotional effects...
Literature by A. K. WarderA. K. WarderAnthony Kennedy Warder is a scholar of Indology, mostly in Buddhist studies and related fields, such as the Pāli and Sanskrit languages. He has written 15 books and numerous articles. He currently holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Sanskrit in the School of East Asian Studies in the...
(10 Volumes, 7 Volumes already published); - History of Indian Philosophy by S.N. Dasgupta (5 Volumes);
- Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions in Ancient India by Ram Sharan SharmaRam Sharan SharmaRam Sharan Sharma was an eminent historian of Ancient and early Medieval India. He had taught at Patna University, Delhi University and the University of Toronto and was a senior fellow at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; University Grants Commission National Fellow...
(Fifth revised edition, 2005) - SudraShudraShudra is the fourth Varna, as prescribed in the Purusha Sukta of the Rig veda, which constitutes society into four varnas or Chaturvarna. The other three varnas are Brahmans - priests, Kshatriya - those with governing functions, Vaishya - agriculturalists, cattle rearers and traders...
s in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order Down to Circa A D 600 by Ram Sharan SharmaRam Sharan SharmaRam Sharan Sharma was an eminent historian of Ancient and early Medieval India. He had taught at Patna University, Delhi University and the University of Toronto and was a senior fellow at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; University Grants Commission National Fellow...
(Third Revised Edition, Delhi, 1990; Reprint, Delhi, 2002) - Ancient Indian Tradition and Mythology (English translation of the Mahapuranas, 60 Volumes already published);
- Buddhist Tradition Series, edited by Alex Wayman (30 Volumes);
- MLBD Series in Linguistics, edited by Dhanesh Jain (10 Volumes);
- Lala Sundar Lal Jain Research Series edited by Dayanand Bhargava (10 Volumes already published).
- Advaita Tradition Series by Shoun Hino & K.P. Jog (8 Volumes already published);
- Performing Arts Series edited by Farlay P. Richmond (7 Volumes already published).
- Wisdom of Sankara Series by Som Raj Gupta (2 Volumes published);
- Kalamulasastra Series (21 Volumes published).
- Bibliotheca Buddhica (30 Volumes in 32 pts) ed. Sergey OldenburgSergey OldenburgSergey Fyodorovich Oldenburg was a Russian orientalist who specialized in Buddhist studies. He is remembered as the founder of Russian Indology and the teacher of Fyodor Shcherbatskoy....
, Fyodor ShcherbatskoyFyodor ShcherbatskoyFyodor Ippolitovich Shcherbatskoy or Stcherbatsky , often referred to in the literature as F. Th. Stcherbatsky, was a Russian Indologist who, in large part, was responsible for laying the foundations in the Western world for the scholarly study of Buddhist philosophy...
, (reprints, originally St. Petersburg) - Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies (7 Volumes already published).
External links
- Motilal Banarsidass, Website
- Treasure trove of Indology at The HinduThe HinduThe Hindu is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded and continuously published in Chennai since 1878. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 1.46 million copies as of December 2009. The enterprise employed over 1,600 workers and gross income reached $40...
- Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi wikimapiaWikimapiaWikiMapia is a privately owned, online map and satellite imaging resource that combines Google Maps with a wiki system, allowing users to add information, in the form of a note, to any location on Earth. Users may currently use this information for free...
.