Four Muslim Americans have been sworn into congress using Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the Quran. Did he or any other notable Founding Fathers own copies of other religious books like the Bhagvat Geeta or Dhammapada or others?

by nsjersey

I’m sure this convo could turn into how people of certain religions don’t take oaths on certain books or which books they would use, and from what American they might use (Now I actually have even more questions).

But for this post, I am specifically wondering if any prominent ex-presidents or politicians had an extensive library of religious books and also if they had ever written anything about their impressions of those holy texts.

Jefferson might come up again, but wondering about other politicians as well.

Prufrock451

Looking at the catalogs of Jefferson's books, it looks as though he had no texts from non-Abrahamic religions. The first English translation of the Bhagavad Gita was published in 1785, so this was possible if not likely.

Other strike-outs:

These were easily enough found with the Google search "catalog books owned by [X]", but I'd say it's unlikely any 18th or even 19th century presidents closely studied any Hindu texts.

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