Development And Impact Of Jainism In India And Abroad

Author(s): Gunvant Barvalia
Publisher: Arham Spiritual Center

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CONTRIBUTIONS OF NRI'S TO JAIN SHASHAN
center for Jain studies, offering regular courses in Jain dharma on campuses, Jainpedia and focused seminars and conferences. Since 2009, a weekly TV broadcast - "Mangalam" for news and interviews with Jain scholars etc. is also posted on the web so that all the episodes may be viewed worldwide. A broadcast channel in Delhhi has agreed to distribute these shows in India.
4. Taking Jainism out of the Jains and sharing with others. Here the NRI Jains participated in Interfaith organizations and activities, at Parliament World Religions Conventions, celebration of Diwali at the White House, and British House of Commons. Conducting Jain prayers at US House of Congress, Ahimsa and other similar awards, visit to Buckingham Palace and to Vatican, seminars at Harvard, SOAS, Universities of Toronto, Ottawa, Claremont Lincoln University and other centers of learning.
The following pages describe some of the major activities and accomplishments of last 45 years.
Lets first examine the Jains of North America. Two visionaries - Gurudev Shri Chitrabhanuji and Acharya Shri SushilKumarji inspired in 1981 creation of JAINA (Federation of Jain Associations in North America) as an Umbrella organization representing all the Jains without distinction of sect, language or the region from which they came. All the 67 Jain center in North America are united under the leadership of JAINA and today it is the largest organization of Jains in the world whose members are Swetamber, Digamber and Sthanakwasi. There are followers of Shrimad, Kanji Swami, Acharya Shri Chandanaji (Veerayatan) and Dada Bhagwan but they all are affiliated with JAINA through the Jain center they belong to. This unity of Jains have attracted respectful notice of all the jains in the world and producedsome notable accomplishments that have positiveimpact on the whole Jain universe:
UNIFIED TEMPLES: To keep all the Jains in a given locality together, JAINA promoted a unified Temple design for all the sects- either a single Gambhara or with separatesections or even a separate floor for each tradition with common dining and parking facilities. Paryushan and Das LaxnaParvas are celebrated at many of the centers. It is a common site in America to see Jains participate in Pujas or Pratikamans of traditions other than their own.
HINDU- JAIN TEMPLES: In small towns where there are very few Jains, they have joined with Hindu communities and built combined Hindu- Jain Temples. While the jury is still out on the wisdom of this non-traditional experiment, this controversial initiative has proven to be a valuable tool for our second generation because of the fact that presently more than half the young jains are marrying non-jain partners. It is up to the Jain samaj to consider this phenomenon as erosion of Jain values or expansion of Jain base.
JAIN E LIBRARY: A free jain library online - work of a single dedicated person - Pravin K Shah of North Carolina is a collection of 6,000 jain books, including Jain scriptures, jain manuscripts, Jain dictionary, Jain encyclopedia, jain articles, Jain magazines etc. in Gujarati, Hindi, English and other languages. All the material is available for free downloads. The website www.jainelibrary.org has more than 17,000 registered users in 98 countries and over 560,000 visitors have visited this website. It is said that no other religion in the world has put so much of
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