JAINA Convention 1993 07 Pittusburgh

Author(s): Federation of JAINA
Publisher: USA Federation of JAINA

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part of this sector of learning was made better known to western readers by R. Williams' Jaina Yoga.27 It is inevitably basically a technical discussion of medieval texts but gives us a reminder of Jain ideas of physiology, psychology and holistic approach to health.
Time and space fail us to annotate many other works which in the 1950's to the 1980's were more or less readily but randomly available to a well educated reader with access to University libraries in Britain, Europe and America. Moving along rapidly and from random personal reading in those days it is possible to recall Dayanand Bhargava's Jaina Ethics, Nathmal Tatia's Studies in Jaina Philosophy and Mohan Lal Mehta's Jaina Philosophy. Balwant Nevaskar's Capitalists without Capitalism, the Jains and Quakers of the West. The book is a welcome foreshadowing of the many fructifying comparative studies which we hope will appear as time goes on.2 Similarly for lack of space we must leave to another time comment on the mass of material on Jainism which would be available to readers of standard western academic periodicals regularly browsed through by historians, "Orientalists", scholars of Comparative Religion and men and women of letters generally.
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The heroic age of the Orientalists, Indologists and Indo-Germanic philologists reached its heights and fulfilment in the work of a Jawarharlal Nehru of Jainology who was master of what the west had "discovered" as well as a natural heir to the "native" tradition. Dr Padmabhav S. Jaini's The Jaina Path of Purification has rightly been hailed as one of the best studies in the religions of South Asia in 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
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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 concerned 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 entitled La voie jaina, histoire, spiritualite, 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 herself, 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.
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 1959 Dr. B.J. Sandesara
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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. 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 made years ago for more work in Jain Sanskrit. The provision of Hindu Lexica 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 Jain literary activity is appearing and more is on 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 academic publications on Jain 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 think 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, Andra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamilnadu), the availability of texts is prodigious. Manuscripts from the old storage houses
"The longest livers, such as Thomas Parr and Madame Prieux and others who lived for about 150 years on this planet, were all vegetarians."
7TH BIENNIAL JAINA CONVENTION - JULY 1993 For Private & Personal Use Only
-Mr. Nibcomb