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by about two dozen saints and scholarly people. The appreciation of a system by others has a better promotional effect rather than self-praise. Many books like 'Seven Systems in Indian Philosophy' (Trigunayat) and The World Religions Reader' (Rutludge) do not contain even any description about Jainism. Of course, Sikhism and its literature finds place everywhere. Many authors still state Jainism and Buddhism as reformatory forms of Hinduism and they describe them in a single chapter. Even many Indian scholars in religious studies departments there do not agree to Jainism as an independent religion. The resident Indian Jainas also do not seem to attempt to remove these incorrect concepts in their books. This is the case even with the books, 'Jainism in North America' (1996) and 'Conquerors of the World' (1998). A similar situation was pointed out by S. K. Jain in U.K. and Europe while he was a visiting fellow there in 1992. Dr. Johrapurkar and Jain also felt the same way much earlier with some suggesions. As a result, there is need for purposeful exposition of Jainism on global basis. Accordingly, we require to collect books, text books, general books and reference books publishing during say, half the century in different important languages and serialise the lopsided or incorrect views in them and try to prepare a multi-faceted book refuting them logically and send it to the authors and publishers so that they may modify their views in the next edition of their books. I shall describe here only some points for proper refutations.
Concepts about Jainism in Many Books of World Religions in the West
The various concepts described in these books may be classified under many cateries.
A. General Conception about Jainism
1. Barring few books, most books still point out Jainsism (and Buddhism too) as a reformed form of Hinduism. They have been developed as a revolt against vedic tradition. Jainism is a minority section of Hinduism. (Thrower, Hopfe, Munroe, Kaufman etc.)
2. Jaina sect is a strange one and it is understood difficultly.
3. Jainism does not seem to be as attractive as Buddhism because the Jainas texts are tasteless and difficult. They are not understood by all.
4. According to Toynbee, Jainism is highly self-centered. The self-centeredness is an intellectual and moral error. It creates egoism. That is why, it could not undergo expansion.
5. According to Basham and Scheitzer, Jainism is basically selfish and negative. Its concepts of Arhat and Tirthankara are based on selfishness. They are
Arhat Vacana, July 2000
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