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Western Perceptions of Jainism : Misconceptions. Achievements and Current Expectations
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Cutch. He graduated from Elphinstone College, Bombay and became secretary to the Jaina Association of India. He involved himself in law suits and negotiations on behalf of the community and got himself highly qualified in Anglo-Indian Law. He was a householder whose wife and son were later able to accompany him on his travels. He kept closely in touch with the renunciants of his communion, especially His Holiness Muni Sri Ātmārāmaji whose base was in the western Punjab.* At the same time he was able to maintain a man-to-man friendship and respect for and with certain kinds of western colonial officials and educationalists.. After the Parliament he promoted a Jaina outreach to the western world in both the U.S.A. and Britain which even after his demise was continued and has maintained his integrity and power of creative imagination. The brilliance, self-possessed reserve and solid achievement of Mr. Gandhi in what must have been very difficult circumstances, strikes the researcher. The message he brought still speaks out loud and clear.
It is possible from the internal evidence to piece together an idea of what most educated westerners knew of Jainism as Mr. Gandhi spoke. Most would know very little, those who knew even a little would be confused and sometimes downright mistaken. If known at all people thought of it as a heterodoxy or reform of Hinduism or as a sect of Buddhism. Scholars and missionaries specialising in India would be aware of the impressive saga of western "discovery" (like Columbus discovering a continent already there) of Jaina religion, practice and culture. In the century before Chicago 1893, say from 1793 onwards, westerners knew very little about Jainism. Again, most knew nothing. The main source of knowledge among the educated elite had been the confused stories brought back by Alexander's armies, by medieval travelers like Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo, then by the Portuguese, Dutch, French and English voyagers, from 1498 to the latest returning East Indian fleet. In these accounts we can with latter-day wisdom pick out unmistakably Jaina features. Alexander met possessionless, naked, wise persons (Gymnosophists); śramaņas (Garmanes, Pramnae, etc.) who could not be coerced by him and who tried to show him the vacuousness of his harmful way of life. But even in the first part of the nineteenth century when H.T. Colebrook was doing his pioneer work, the Jainas were confused with Hindus and Buddhists and
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| SR No. | 014010 |
| Book Title | Jainism in a Global Perspective - Collection of Jain papers of 1993 Parliament of World Religions, Chicago |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Sagarmal Jain, Shreeprakash Pandey |
| Publisher | Parshwanath Vidyapith |
| Publication Year | 1998 |
| Total Pages | 402 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Seminar & Articles |
| File Size | 23 MB |