As repositories of culture and legacy, museums play an important role. While some institutions may be dedicated to the preservation of historical objects and artefacts, others carry the weight of presenting a community and preserving its traditions for times immemorial. The brand new Samrat Samprati Museum of Jain Heritage in Koba, Gujarat designed by SJK Architects, does so with respect to promoting the Jain values and ideals of ahimsa (non-violence), austerity, and restraint. It recently opened to public, having been launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The museum is named after Samrat Samprati, who was the grandson of Ashoka. He is revered in the Jain tradition owing to his commitment to non-violence and propagation of Jainism. The museum contains the single largest collection of Jain manuscripts in India – even though only a part of the over three lakh manuscripts are on display – along with rare artefacts like bronzes, stone sculptures, miniature paintings and ritual objects that showcase the rich historical, cultural, and spiritual legacy of Jainism.
The design of the building by SJK Architects is also noteworthy, with a white cube rising over slender double columns, holding within it a water body and trees placed around a central courtyard. The white colour is rooted in Jain history, signifying peaceful living. “Drawing on sacred Yantra diagrams and the planning of Ranakpur Jain Temple, the plan embodies concentric geometry, continuing the religion’s representation of the cosmos in a modernist expression. The stilted ground floor crafts an engaging public space before one encounters the galleries above. A ramp rising gently along the courtyard marks a dignified ascent from an active space to a more immersive, more personal journey, much like a Jain parikrama (circumambulation)”, says Shimul Javeri Kadri, founding partner at SJK Architects.
Seven galleries are placed across two upper floors and they use colour, light, scale, and form to present complex concepts. Museum consultants BRMA were part of the process as they helped curate the narrative along the intellectual and historical evolution of the religion. The journey moves from the nine foundational principles of Jainism (Navpad) through the lives of significant Tirthankaras (24 enlightened spiritual teachers in Jainism), the era of Mahavira (the final Tirthankara of the current age), royal patronage and monastic lineages, and culminates in an auditorium presenting the living practice of Jainism today. One is encouraged to stop and pause at various points to absorb the density of what’s on offer and prevent museum fatigue.
Commissioned by Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra (SMJK) Trust and built with the support of the UNM Foundation of Torrent Group, this museum truly stands apart. “The Samrat Samprati Museum is a unique amalgamation of India’s ancient tradition and modernity. It integrates modern audiovisual technology, spiritual music and immersive presentations to provide an infrastructure for a contemporary experience for visitors, researchers and scholars. Beyond its visual appeal, the museum offers a profound spiritual journey, conveying eternal values of non-violence, restraint and compassion to society”, explains an official from Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhna Kendra.
The collection was assembled over four decades by the Trust within its campus library, the Gyan Mandir, and was previously accessible only to scholars and community members. The vastness of the collection means only one-tenth of the archive can be displayed at any given time.
“The design of this museum is conceived as a storytelling device. Entry to the museum is itself a spatial experience. Visitors pass through a tunnel lined with intricate marble jaalis (carved screens) that filter light and offer glimpsed views of the building beyond, before the passage opens to reveal the full courtyard. A gradual ramp then rises from the water’s edge along the courtyard’s eastern perimeter to the first-floor galleries. The eight auspicious Jain symbols, the Ashtamangala, are embossed into the building’s facades at their associated cardinal orientations, integrated into the architecture rather than applied as decoration.
The ground floor is nonticketed and open to all. The two-acre site previously served as a thoroughfare connecting the campus’s temple, library, rest house and dining areas. We designed it as a shaded community space beneath two mature neem trees, with the courtyard water body creating a cooling microclimate against Gujarat’s dry heat. It functions as a gathering point for scholars, pilgrims, school groups, and firsttime visitors before and after the gallery experience,” says Kadri.
Roshni Kshirsagar, partner at SJK Architects, adds, “On the upper two floors, seven immersive galleries carry visitors through over a millennium of Jain history and philosophy. Each gallery uses its own colour, light, and material palette to reinforce the ideas being presented. One gallery recreates the Mughal court at Fatehpur Sikri in red sandstone arches with white borders, the setting where Jain acharya Heer Suri taught Emperor Akbar the principles of ahimsa, leading to a royal decree in 1582 prohibiting the killing of animals during the Jain festival of Paryushan. Manuscripts rest on pivoting display frames, large cloth scroll paintings (patts) hang in double-height spaces, a tree-form light installation surrounded by stone sculptures of monks evokes a Tirthankara in meditation. Protruding glass balconies (jharokhas) inside galleries open onto the courtyard at deliberate intervals, timed to the natural pauses in the curatorial narrative.”
The galleries comply with ICOMOS A+ and A++ humidity classifications and the building also houses conservation laboratories and reserve vaults on its ground level, providing the preservation infrastructure required for the collection. It’s a museum that must be visited both for its venerable collection as well as its cutting-edge design.
