Jainism in a Global Perspective - Collection of Jain papers of 1993 Parliament of World Religions, Chicago

SR No.: 014010
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

Page 80

Western Perceptions of Jainism : Misconceptions. Achievements and Current Expectations
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heart and universal significance of Jainism. It remained an objective phenomenon of no great own-life significance. It might be that we have taken to heart and mind the Enlightenment dichotomy of religious belief and the rest of life, a kind of divorce between religion and ethics, politics, philosophy, economics, personal behavior. There is an inability to perceive the all-permeation of life by belief and spirituality.
Let us look briefly at three notable cases of westerners writing about Jainism. Professor Herman Jacobi (1850-1937) gave a life time's dedicated labour to work on Indian astrology, philosophy and religion. His best work was on Jainism. In 1873 he spent a year in India and visited ancient Jaina renunciant communities in Rajasthan. In 1913 he came to India again and was highly honoured by the Jaina community. In his writings and his speeches he showed warm admiration for Jainism. Yet he reluctant to touch on the effect of Jaina belief on a person's life or on the presence and effect of a Jaina community on a country or nation. That sort of reflection did not enter his head or to write about it was considered contrary to academic protocol. He was born in Koeln, he studied at Bonn, he taught at Muenster, Kiel and Koeln : his active career as a thinker and writer went on from the 1870s to 1930 when Germany (and especially the towns where he lived), as the epitome of western culture, learning, technology and science was hurtling on its way to the apocalyptic of Nazism. The Nazis claimed to be Aryans, while the expert on what true Aryanism meant did not feel impelled to tell his compatriots they had got things wrong way around, not only the swastika. It is not for us to sit in judgment on the great ones of the past, there is something in our system and ways of thought that needs to be put right.
The other most influential former and shaper of western views of Jainism stopped to consider the cosmic and universal significance of Jainism and then put it in the wrong place. Dr. (Mrs.) Margaret Sinclair Stevenson had covered herself with honours at Oxford before women could be given degrees there. She also had an earned Doctorate in Civil Law from Trinity College, Dublin. One of the most brilliant women of her day, she gave her career as a devotional offering to Gujarat. Her Heart of Jainism was remarkable for its field-work, especially among women, and its grasp of the beauty of Jaina spirituality.' It remained the standard and main