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The Jain community, I may mention is in the forefront as far as charities are concerned - in the educational, religious, medical fields, relief to the needy and underprivileged and more particularly for animal and human relief at times of droughts and floods.
However, it is a real pity that we Jains have not taken as much interest in the politics and administration of our mother country i.e. Bharat as the Jains in the past had done. I have discussed their contribution in the proceding passages feel confident that had we taken the interest that we ought to, the conduct of affairs of our country would have had a much higher footing in terms of wisdom, integrity and morality, because Dharma (religion, duty and belief in the matter of morality) would have had its spiritual effect in totality.
The present crisis in the world is really crisis of character. The wide-spread violence and the degradation of moral values that we experience all around has taken place due to the proliferation of the acquisitive cultureboth for money as well as power. Even in the developed countries now, a disenchantment
has set in about too much affluence and the consequential materialism and a search for spiritual solace is evident more and more. Similarly, in the underdeveloped countries, in the quest for better standards of living, we see the quest for more power and money. It is the need of the hour that everything possible is done to bring back the moral a better understanding of the needs of the developed and the underdeveloped nations and better cooperation between them which is so
necessary for the continuance of this worldly
civilisation.
In these circumstances, Jainism can play an important role the widespread preaching and practical of tenets of Jainism can create a new, climate for the world as a whole and lead as to Moksa, the Sumum bonum of life.
Jain Education International
JAIN STUDIES IN GERMANY
hundred years old and it is worth Jaina studies in Germany are more than a remembering how they began. It was Otto von Bohtlingk who first published a German version of Hemachandra's Abhidanacintamani followed by Albrecht Weber with parts of Satrunjayamahatmya in 1858 and Bhagavati, now called Viyahapannatti, in 1866.
Vijayaji, saw marvellous collections of who, thanks to the liberality of Muni Punya manuscripts there. Georg Buhler, when locating manuscripts obtained permission from the Anglo-Indian Government to keep duplicates and hand them over to the Library in Berlin. Thus an extremely good and rich collection of Agama and other works came to Germany. They were taken care of by Albrechet Weber, the aforementioned leading indologist of his time. He, in many years of pinstaking work, was the first to penetrate into the then almost impassable jungle of the holy scriptures. Prakrit knowledge was then very limited and Jaina manuscripts practically unknown. He prepared a magnificent catalogue of these manuscripts constituting an almost complete survey of the canonical literature of the Svetambara sect. In the foreword he says, "a good deal of my eyesight is buried in them". Thus Albrecht Weber initiated Jaina studies in Germany together with Hermann Jacobi
a
In the sixties of the last century, there was German scholar, Georg Buhler, in the service of the then Anglo-Indian Government, who was sent out to collect manuscripts. At the same time, a very young German indologist, Hermann Jacobi, went to India for a tour of the country, and Buhler made him cancel all his plans and accompany him on his search for manuscripts. The two together went among other places to the famous Jaina Bhandar of Jaisalmer. They were the first Westerners to visit that town. The next after them was probably Ludwig Alsdorf in 1951
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