Jains in India and Abroad

SR No.: 007601
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Prakash C Jain
Publisher: International Summer School for Jain Studies
Publication Year: 2011
Total Pages: 260
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 6 MB

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identity is one factor in maintaining its segmental orientation. Another factor contributing towards Jain's segmental orientation was their minority and "peripheral" status in relation to Hindu majority. Their occupational specialization further rendered it a relatively closed system in spite of its open door policy to all, irrespective of caste, class, and creed. Segmental Orientation of Jains helped them prevent from developing elaborate stratificatory orientation within, i.e., caste system, etc.
Segmental orientation of a community creates hindrances in its adjustment with other communities. Apparently this must have been more so in the case of Jains who predominantly as a community of traders and merchants had to be dependent on non-Jains for various services as well as market. This places them in a paradoxical situation of isolation and adjustment. More than anything else the survival of Jainism and the disappearance of Buddhism from India during the medieval period clearly highlight the nature of this paradox.
Accounting for Jainism's ability to weather the Muslim assault during the 12th and 13th centuries, Horenle (1898), Stevenson (1995/1915) and Lamb (1958) suggest that Jain monastic organization largely explain this phenomenon. Lay adherents, though part of the monastic organization, do not live in monasteries. Thus when monastic settlements were assaulted by Muslims, lay adherents still survived taking refuge among Hindus, who themselves were subjected to harassment. This sympathy or affinity was not incidental. As already mentioned there are many similarities of religious beliefs and practices between the two. Among others, the Jains share with the Vedantins the notion of soul (atma) and its reincarnation and karma theory, although Jainist notion of soul (jivatma) derives from animism and has far-reaching implications in their system of thought. Buddhism, on the contrary, altogether denies the existence of the soul.
Stevenson (1915: 6) further observes that Jain's "worship exactly resembles Hindu worship, and their domestic chaplains, though not their temple officials, are still Brahmins." Thus, unlike Buddhism, Jainism did not cut itself off from the core Hindu community. As part of the mechanism of this adjustment Jains also started incorporating
136 Jains in India and Abroad