ISJS Jainism Study Notes E5 Vol 04

Author(s): International School for Jain Studies
Publisher: International School for Jain Studies

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this century and certainly the best on Jainism.30 More recently, he has published a tightly and meticulously argued analysis of ancient Jain discussions about whether only the totally unclothed can reach the goal, whereas most agree it is indecorous for a woman to appear before mixed groups unclothed. Even long ago and even among male ascetics who are well known throughout world history for their suspicion of womanhood, the Jain community has had strong groups of those who insisted on women's absolute and universal rights.31
Two of the greatest revolutions in the history of human thought in the recent past in the west have been con cerned with the status of women and with the place of human spirituality in the universe. In 1985 there appeared a volume of over 600 pages entity La voie Jaina, histoire, spirituality, vie des ascetes pelerines de l'Inde by N. Shanta with a Presentation by Professor Raimundo Panikkar. 32 It is based on long and careful study of the texts but above all on the best field-work since Dr. (Mrs.) Sinclair Stevenson's. Moreover, it is a field-work of total immersion. Although internal evidence would lead us to suppose the writer is a French Catholic woman renunciant and everlasting pilgrim hilt her Christianity shines through chiefly in her constant admiration and love for the spirituality of another group which has seniority and much to teach. As a woman her knowledge and understanding of the supreme sisterhood of her Jain friends is also ever apparent. It is an outstanding book which in its own way will never be surpassed. It was published by a distinguished but small Paris firm and received little publicity and great difficulty is being experienced in publishing an English translation.
[10] Some Developments in Indian Studies of Jainism
More difficult, if not impossible, for outsiders mainly resident in the West to follow, but of the greatest importance for revisionists and onward-going thinking during the last decades are the lively discourse and debate on Jain studies going on in India. At the beginning of the period in 1954 Dr. B.J. Sandesara reporting as President of the Prakrit and Jainism section of the All India Oriental Conference seemed at first to be somewhat pessimistic. He described how Sanskrit still has the strongest pull over Prakrit for the best students, as Buddhism and Hinduism have over Jainism. 33 However, he points out that new Institutions are coming up in Bihar and Gujarat. A Cultural Index of the Jain canon is now well under way. He says it is time to take up Dr. Bloomfield's call male years ago for more work in Jain Sanskrit: The provision of Hindu I ex ice for Prakrit words is being well met. In the matter of publishing texts from the Grantha-Bhandaras, the re-discovery of Indological works dealing with all kinds of subjects is still going on. Hindi work on very many aspects of Jam literary activity is appearing and more is on j its way. Hindi translations of German master works are becoming available. Dr. Sandesra also gives detail of many works on Jain material originally written in Sanskrit on drama, lexicography, astrology, mathematics and much else. He passes on to learned works appearing in Gujarati on Jain topics. After speaking of work in Kannada, he turns to cynic publications on Jam art and architecture both ancient and modern and speaks of Jain philosophy, culture and history and comes on to non-violence and Religion, He concludes with bibliographies and catalogues. One can only say this is a staggering output during a two year period when you come to thistle how small in proportion to the total the Jain population of India is. (Some say it is about half of one percent.) This activity has not abated but increased geometrically.
To say a little more about only the discourse in Hindi (while acutely aware of Gujarati and hearing something of the work going on in the languages of Rajastan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamilnadu), the availability of texts is prodigious. Manuscripts from the old storage houses including those overtaken by Partition are continuing to be catalogued edited and collated. The whole attitude of the modern fundamentalist western approach to authorized, canonical texts must give place to something nearer to real life. Here the urgent need of Christianity to be aware of and use its interdependence with other religions is underlined. Beside commentaries and text editions, various helps to study and aids to understanding exist in Hindi and no doubt in other Indian languages, which we sorely lack in English. Jainendra Jaina's Dictionary, comes immediately to mind.34 The community must decide, now English has reached the status of a world sacred language, if it is worthwhile to do translations or to wait for a new generation of Jain scholars with English as a first language and computerize as a second to produce or duplicate them.
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