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The Jain Scripture and Community....
nature of identity. The intensity of the complex pressures, at times involving both attraction and repulsion, to which the Jains were subjected within the pluralistic socio-religious world of medieval India can much better be gauged from the rich Sanskrit, Prakrit and Old Gujarati narrative sources which show a keen awareness of the difficulties of identity experienced by a minority community (Granoff 1994). In addition, despite his occasional reference to Digambara sources (e.g. SAC : 49-52 and 317-27) and a passing account of the Sthanakvāsi sect (SAC : 179-81), the Jainism presented in SAC is very much that of the nurnerically dominant svetāmbara image worshippers amongst whom Folkert conducted his fieldwork, so that there is little sense given to the reader of the religion's internal variety.
Nevertheless, one's main reactions to SAC are admiration of its author's perspicacity in identifying and analysing so many areas of significance in a subject which was at the time not clearly delineated and a certain melancholy that he did not live to carry out his research agenda to the finish. Nobody, however, could say after reading this marvellously stimulating book that Kendall Folkert's promise was unfulfilled. All involved in the study of Jainism are urged to read and reflect upon it.
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