History of Canonical Literature of Jainas

Author(s): Hiralal R Kapadia, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

Page 230

CHAPTER VII
COMPARISON AND EVALUATION
The Jaina contributions are vast, varied and valuable. They have enriched in no small measure the treasures of the Indian literature. But, even then, till recently, their value was not probably realized.' The Jaina contributions have many new things to suggest; but this requires a deep and scientific study. This is borne out by Prof. Winternitz who sounded a clarion call and awakened us from lethargy by contributing his scholarly
1. Prof. A. Weber has said very little about the Jaina literature in his famous Lectures on the History of Indian Literature (2nd German edn., 1876). But that was not his fault; for, it may be ascribed to the state of knowledge at that time. He made up this deficiency by giving a splendid account of the Jaina literature in the "Indische Studien" vols. XVI and XVII (1883-85) and in his Reports on Jaina Mss. in the Royal Library at Berlin (1888-91). He was the very pioneer of the Jaina Studies in Europe.
"The brilliant and much-read book on the Literature and Culture of India by Leopold von Schrader, published in 1887, devotes half a page to the sect of the Jainas without even mentioning anything about Jaina literature."
This is what is said by Prof. Winternitz in The Jainas in the History of Indian Literature published in "Indian Culture" (vol. I, No. 2, p. 143).
History of Sanskrit Literature by the late Prof. A. A. Macdonell, published in 1900 has nothing to say about the Jaina literature.-Ibid., p. 143.
A Baumgartner in his learned compilation Die Literaturen Indiens und Ostasiens (forming a part of a voluminous Geschichte der Weltliteratur, 3rd and 4th edn, 1902) devotes 4 pages to the Jainas and their literature, and winds up this topic by quoting the following line from E. Washburn Hopkin's Religions of India (Boston, 1895, p. 296 f.):
"The Jainas have no literature worthy of that name."-Ibid., p. 143.
R. W. Frazer in his Literary History of India (1898) has well pointed out ou p. 310 f., the great influence the Jainas have exercised on the Dravidian literature of the south India but he has nothing to say about Jaina literature and its place in the Samskrta and Präkṛta literature of India. Ibid., p. 144.
H. Oldenburg in Die Literatur des alten Indien, published in 1903 disposes of the Jainas in three lines.-Ibid., pp. 143-144.