Jaina Community a Social Survey

SR No.: 007019
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Vilas Sangve
Publisher: Popular Book Depot Bombay
Publication Year: 1980
Total Pages: 484
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 12 MB

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Jaina Community–A Social Survey
tious beliefs and practices, types of houses and household articles, use of language and conventional ways of greetings and behaviour, styles of architecture and sculpture, etc. there are various common features between the Jainas and Hindus. The Jainas have completely identified themselves with the general interests of the regions concerned and they have made varied and substantial contributions to the development of languages and literature, arts and architecture, logic and philosophy, education and learning, charitable and public institutions and material and spiritual welfare of the people of those regions. In this way the Jainas have maintained very close relations with the Hindus and we have already noted that this is one of the main reasons which contributed to the continued existence of the Jaina community. Even the attitude of Hindus was, in general, more cordial and sympathetic towards Jainas than towards Buddhists. The Hindus in their Brahma-Sūtras tried to refute Jainism as a separate pbilosophy, but they never rigorously attacked and finally supplanted Jainism as toey did in the case of Buddhism. In the sacred Vedas of the Hindus we find references to Jaina Tirthankaras or Prophets. Some Hindu Purānas give the story of Rshabha, the first Tirthankara of Jainas, and consider him as an incarnation of Nārāyana in an age prior to that of the ten avatāras or incarnations of Vishnu. Tnus in social matters there is virtually no difference between Jainas and Hindus. This was the position for the last so many centuries.
But we have already noticed that the position has changed during the last few decades. Now there is a growing tendency to eradicate every non-Jaina element from the Jaina community. As a result many Jainas have stopped keeping marital relations with the Hindus and even among the Jainas the field for marriage is restricted to the members of a particular sect or sub-sect and caste or sub-caste. Efforts are being made from the last fifty or sixty years to organise the Jaipa community even in social matters and to sever its conrections from the Hindu community. Various associations are working to increase social relations among the Jainas and to form them into a separate social group. The Jainas dow, it appears, sincerely desire to make themselves distinct from the Hindu community in social practices as they are in religious ones. Thus they are trying to maintain themselves as a distinct community and wish to keep up their separate identity in future.