International Journal Of Jaina Studies Vol 01 To 03 2005 To 2007

SR No.: 022773
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Peter Flugel
Publisher: Hindi Granth Karyalay
Publication Year: 2008
Total Pages: 202
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

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arrival of the East African Jain Diaspora from 1967 onwards. Understandably, the new migrants were more narrowly focused on the educational needs of their own communities, than the short-term Jain visitors two generations earlier. They established institutions for community education such as the now defunct Jain Pathsälä in Leicester 1973-1977, Candana Vidyapith in London 1998, and Jain Visva Bharati London 2003, and organised Sivirs and other educational events. In addition. Jain community organisations such as the Institute of Jainology, the Jain Academy, and Jain Spirit, which seek to transcend the sect and caste-based loyalties of the majority of the British Jains, promoted an Adult Education course on Jainism at the Faculty of Continuing Education at Birkbeck College in London from 1997, and University degree courses on Jainism at De Montford University in Leicester 1994-1997, and at SOAS from 1999 onwards. Though the interest in the academic study of Jainism continues to remain low amongst 'born' Jains, even if combined with a professional degree, the enthusiasm for Jaina Studies is increasing amongst the wider public and amongst professional academics and teachers. In Britain and in Europe and North America as a whole, the growing interest in Jainism and in the Jain way of life is reflected in the increasing number of publications on the Jain tradition, in public exhibitions such as Peaceful Liberators in the U.S.A. and at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1996 and Steps to Liberation at the Etnographisch Museum of Antwerpen in 2000, and in the new Centre for Jaina Studies. the first of its kind, which was founded by SOAS in March 2004 to host regular international Jaina Studies Conferences and Annual Jaina Lectures, and to promote teaching and research of the Jain tradition at the University of London.
The term 'Jain Studies' is not without its critics who point to its uneasy closeness to Jain studies' and to its artificially narrow thematic focus. Academic research on the Jain tradition was pioneered in the Departments of Indology which were newly introduced into European Universities during the first half of the 19th Century (only to be slowly abolished again in the first half of the 21" century)." The pioneers of Jaina Studies were predominately professional philologists who studied not a religious group or a set of
29 See Pal 1995.
30 See Alphen 2000.
See Bollée 2005: 23.
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