Doctrine of Jainas

Author(s): Walther Shubring, Wolfgang Beurlen
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 13

I
A SHORT HISTORY OF JAIN RESEARCH
§ 1. It was in the year 1807 that in the Asiatic Researches (Calcutta and London), Vol. IX, there appeared three reports published under the title "Account of the Jains" and collected by Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Colin MACKENZIE supplemented by an abstract from his diary of 1797 and from that of Dr F. BUCHANAN1, the latter containing some notes of a Jain gentleman. These publications were immediately followed by H Th. COLEBROOKE'S "Observations on the Sect of Jains". They were based upon those researches as well as on Colebrooke's own, and it was in them that, apart from bare descriptive recording, some scholarly spirit first made itself felt by a critical standpoint taken and by facts being combined. Jain rescaich thus dates from somewhat more than 150 years ago.
In H. H. WILSON's "Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus" we find some stray notes about the Jains, but no details are given, though, on the other hand, the author dwells upon Vol. I of the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society (1827) which contained an essay by DELAMAINE and one more by BUCHANAN (F. Buchanan HAMILTON), both with the title "On the Srawacs or Jains" and followed by a few remarks of the latter and of W. FRANCKLIN about some Jain temples, by COLEBROOKE'S account of two inscriptions, and by WILSON's own review of COLEBROOKE's study "Sect
1. BUCHANAN published "A Journey from Madras through the countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar" (Lo 1807, 2nd ed Madras 1870, comp. GUÉRINOT JAS 1909, p 55). In this work the Jains are often mentioned. BUCHANAN's Journal kept during the Survey of the Districts of Patna and Gaya in 1811-12", ed by V H JACKSON, Patna 1925, contains a description of his visit to the place where Mahavira died Comp JACOBI SPAW 1930, P 561
2 Printed in Colebrooke's Miscellaneous Essays, 2nd, ed (1872) vol II, 191-224