Development And Impact Of Jainism In India And Abroad

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

Page 45

Development & Impact of Jainism in India & Abroad
in California established Ahimsa Center in 2004 and helped establish a on campus degree program for a minor in Non Violence Studies.
Dr. Padmanabh S. Jaini - Dean of all the Jain scholars in America who is retired professor at University of California is author of many books and papers on Jainism.
This paper will be at great fault if it did not mention rising population of young Jains in North America who are adopting VEGANISM. Gurudev Shri Chitrabhanuji has been constantly preaching to the Jains for the last 12 years about veganism, detailing extreme violence to the Five sensed animals. During the 2011 JAINA convention, half the meals served were vegan but tradition minded adult Jains have been very slow to adopt Veganism. Not so with the members of the "Young Jains of America". Their 2012 Convention attended by 1000 youngster was completely vegan and many of them have adopted veganism.
Let us now examine contributions of the Jains from U.K.
RatilalChandaria is most recognized for his mega creation: Gujarati lexicon.com - the most comprehensive Gujarati language resource containing more than 45 lakh words. It aims to preserve, popularize and develop Gujarati language through the power of Internet. It is a product of more than 20 years of labor of love. It has dictionaries - English to Gujarati, Gujarati to English, Gujarati to Gujarati and Hindi to Gujarati. Thesaurus, opposites, idioms, proverbs and phrases are also included.
Dr. Natubhai Shah was one of the earliest organizers of Jain community in UK. He was instrumental in building the first Jain Temple of Europe in Leister. He also authored a two volume encyclopedic book " Jainism: The world of Conquerors". He was the person to initiate jain studies at Bombay University.
Another visionary was Vinod Kapashi. He was instrumental in creating a Jain Temple in London and has authored 6 books on Jainism.
Most significant contribution to Jainism is undoubtedly been made by Institute of Jainology. Established in 1986 in London, the IOJ's mission is to propagate Jainism and its values through art, culture and education. IOJ also provides a platform for interaction between different jain communities and where all sectarian traditions jointly promote the faith. Some of the major accomplishments of IOJ are:
Cataloging Jain Manuscripts:Richness of Jain literature is thousands of manuscripts, some over a thousand years old, that are scattered in museums, libraries, temples and private collectors throughout the world. IOJ has a mammoth project to catalog them. They started with Jain Manuscripts in the British Library. In 2002, IOJ received blessings from the then Prime Minister Shree Bajpai and generous grant for the project and the work began in earnest. Honorable Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh in 2006 launched the three-volume catalogue of manuscripts in British Library. IOJ has plans to next catalogue Jain manuscripts at both the Welcome Trust and the Oxford library.
JAINPEDIA: An IOJ project tomake the important manuscripts from the various Jain collectionsin the UK accessible and understandable to lay persons. IOJ in partnership with Kings
36