Religion and Culture of the Jains

SR No.: 002009
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jyoti Prasad Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith
Publication Year: 1999
Total Pages: 258
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Religion, & Culture
File Size: 16 MB

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At the outset, this great scholar (Winternitz) confesses that "it would take a fairly big volume to give a history of all that the Jainas have contributed to the treasure of Indian literature", and that "I am, however, fully aware that I was not able to do full justice to the literary achievements of the Jainas. But I hope to have shown that the Jainas have contributed their full share to the religious, ethical, poetical, and scientific literature of ancient India."
RELIGION & CULTURE OF THE JAINS
Winternitz's guru, Dr. Buhler, had much earlier (in 1887) remarked, "In grammer, in astronomy, as well as in all branches of belles-lettres the achievements of the Jainas have been so great that even their opponents have taken notice of them, and that some of their works are of importance for European science even today.... Though this activity has led them far away from their own particular aims, yet it has secured for them an important place in the history of Indian literature and civilisation."
Dr. Hermann Jacobi, another reputed Indologist who had deeply studied Jaina literature, observed, "It may here be mentioned that the Jainas also possess a secular literature of their own, in poetry and prose, both Sanskrit and Prakrit. Of peculiar interest are the numerous tales in Prakrit and Sanskrit with which authors used to illustrate dogmatical or moral problems. They have also attempted more extensive narratives, some in more popular style of Sanskrit poems, both in purāṇa and kāvya style, and hymns in Prakrit and Sanskrit, are very numerous with Śvetambaras as well as the Digambaras; there are likewise some Jaina dramas. Jaina authors have also contributed many works, original treatises as well as commentaries, to the scientific literature of India in its various branches: grammar, lexicography, metrics, poetics, philosphy, etc."
And, Prof. A.L. Basham, the more noted among current Indologists, writes, "There is, however, much non-canonical