Jinamanjari 1999 04 No 19

SR No.: 524019
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication
Publication Year: 1999
Total Pages: 88
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, Canada_Jinamanjari, & Canada
File Size: 5 MB

Page 85

singular, isolated socio-religious entity that has been mistakenly separated from the context of a multiform South Asian landscape, an "essentially marginal, unimportant heterodox group (Buddhist-Jain)," or "a degenerationist model in which a supposedly pure, original ur-Jain doctrine is contrasted with the later impure, degenerated Jainism largely composed of half-understood and ill-digested Hindu influences and accretions (3)."
The intent of Open Boundaries is to correct this type of reductionist analysis. Though the granting of direction and degree of influence of one tradition on the other may vary from article to article, each of the contributors to this project counter the image of a single, marginalised Jaina identity. Instead, through a wealth of methodologies adopted from such sub-disciplines as textual analysis, history, art, economics, anthropology, sociology and ritual studies, this project has pieced together an extraordinary mosaic that portrays the Jainas as a varied, interactive and dynamic community involved in an energetic discourse not only with its own constituents, but with South Asian society as a whole.
In sum, the scholarship of John Cort, Christopher Key Chapple, Paul Dundas, Gary A. Tubb, James Ryan, Michael W. Meister, Lawrence A. Babb, Indira Viswanathan Peterson, Leslie Orr and Richard H. Davis has contributed to a project that is impressive, innovative, and more importantly, accessible to scholars, students of Jainism, and neophytes alike. Though at times the boundaries between what has been labeled orthodox and heterodox tradition can get disoncertingly blurred -- and this tends to be more a problem for those who have come to depend on static categories rather than a problem with the text itself -- this project is a marvelous foundation to what will hopefully become a new direction in both Jaina and South Asian studies. I
- Mikal A. Radford, a Doctoral student in the Department of Religious Studies and Social Sciences at McMaster University Canada.
Jaina Philosophy and Religion. Monk Nyayavijayaji. English Tr. by Nagin J. Shah. New Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass & B.L. Institute of Indology, 1998. pp.437. Price:Rs. 450. ISBN: 81-208-1490-8.
This is a voluminous work - a translation from Gujarati - encopasses the total philosophy of Jain religion in six chapters. The eastern philosophy always looked into the final end from life-cycle, and in this connection Jainism being one of the oldest religions dating back to the pre-advent of the Aryans has been said to be one of the foremost
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