Glossary of Jaina Terms

Author(s): N L Jain
Publisher: Jain International Ahmedabad

Page 11

INTRODUCTION
Jainism has a potency of being a world religion. This requires a large amount and variety of Jaina literature to be published and made available for the public at large in all parts of the world. The general language of Jaina literature is Prākrta, Sanskrta, Apabhransa and later other Indian languages which are confined to limited regions. However, the above objective requires that its literature should be produced and be made available in a widely used language throughout the world. Currently, English holds the ground.
There are two ways of producing Jinistic literature. The original writing is one and translations of existing texts is another. The latter has a historical importance for evaluating the history of development of thoughts and concepts. A large number of canonical and pro-canonical texts have been translated in English by the eastern and western scholars since the last quarter of the last century. Many general and popular books have also been written. All have tried to express Jaina principles and practices in a popular language as far as possible. Since then, a large amount of Jainological literature on its various aspects is coming out yearly for all levels despite the feeling of few books for the middle level. The Jainological literature in English is now increasing day-by-day,
it is agreed that Jainology is a complete system. It has its own specific terminology running into thousands of words.. Most authors have used their own English equivalents for these terms. It is found that either these terms have been transliterated as such or explained in long sentences or words or coined their own equivalents for the basic terms. Only few terms seem to be common. This has resulted in multiplicity of English equivalents for many terms. This situation does not quality for simplicity of language for primary or general reader. Quite often, it leads to confuse the mind when one reads Jainological books by different authors. Thus, the situation seems to be colloidal with respect to the English equivalents for Jaina terms. This has been felt for long and more acutely now by the Jainas and their younger generation abroad.
The current times require uniform glossary for expression of thoughts and concepts as in the case of sciences and technology. This makes the system more commonly understandable whether one reads this or that book. This also leads to academic acceleration worldwide. Under the current state of worldwide interest in Jainology, it is, therefore, necessary to standardise as far as possible, the Jaina terms in English and reduce the variety to the minimum. This will