Jain Digest 2007 11 1

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

Page 19

JAIN DIGEST. Winter 2007
prerana
Jain centre at Moodbidre in Tulunadu. Although the local
later to become one of his main areas of scholarly expertise. languages of Nellikar were Tulu and Kannada, Jaini's parents During his stay in Sri Lanka Jaini met Dr. B. R Ambedkar, also encouraged the study of Hindi, and the household who visited Sri Lanka prior to his momentous decision to contained a large number of regularly consulted books from convert to Buddhism. North India on Jain and other subjects.
Jaini's first publication, Silonman Be Varsa ("Two Years in At a young age of ten Padmanabh Jaini's parents sent him far Ceylon), provides in Gujarati information about the from home to the north to board at a Digambara lain gurukula practicalities of Theravada Buddhism and a discussion of the at Karania in Vidarbha (Maharashtra) in order to continue his potential for a genuine Buddhist revival in India. After being schooling at Secondary level. This establishment was founded awarded the degree of Tripitakacarya in 1951 at a special by Brahmachari Devchand, who was later to become the
ceremony held at Prime Minister Senanayake's residence, Jaini celebrated monk Acarya Samantabhadra. It was here during a
returned to Ahmedabad to take up a lecturer's position. period of eight years that the young Jaini gained his first
However, he was soon to be on the move again, being appointed familiarity with many basic Jain texts and encountered some
in 1952 to a newly created lectureship in Pali at Banaras Hindu of the great Digambara lay scholars of the period.
University, Banaras and its many educational institutions were
home to a large number of distinguished Jain scholars who Jaini got his B.A. Hons. degree in Sanskrit with subsidiary carried on a lively intercourse on various aspects of Buddhism Prakrit from the University of Bombay. During this time he and Jainism.
and Jainism. supported himself by superintending a boarding house for Shvetambara Jain students. The duties of this post obliged Jaini
While engaged in the editing of Abhidharmadipa, an important to travel to various Shvetambara centres to collect donations,
Buddhist manuscript Jaini was visited in 1956 by John Brough, as a result of which he became aware for the first time of the
then Professor of Sanskrit at the School of Oriental and African social diversity of Jainism and the fact that there were other
Studies at the University of London. Brough was Jain sectarian groups, such as the Sthanakavasis, virtually
unquestionably impressed by Jaini's philological acumen, for unknown to the Digambaras of Tulunadu.
the meeting quickly led to the offer and the subsequent
acceptance of a lectureship at SOAS. This familiarity with Shvetambara Jainism was to stand in good stead when, on graduation in 1947, he was invited by the great
Jaini remained at SOAS from 1956 until 1967 as Lecturer in Sthanakavasi scholar Pandit Sukhlal Sanghavi to study with
Pali and, subsequently, Reader in Pali and Buddhist Sanskrit. him in Ahmedabad. Sanghavi himself had been blind from
Under Brough's supervision, Jaini quickly finished his edition the age of eleven (a victim of smallpox) but nonetheless became
of the Abhidharmadipa, for which he was awarded the degree profoundly versed in Jain logic, rising to be professor at Banaras
of Ph.D. by the University of London. Hindu University. Jaini's near-daily meetings with this scholar Jaini moved to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor as over this period involved not just formal instruction in nyaya, Professor of Indic Languages and Literature and finally in 1972, carried out in rigorous fashion through the medium of a close the culmination of a long journey for the small-town Jain boy analysis of a portion of Hemacandra's Pramanamimamsa, but from Tulunadu, to California where he served until 1994 as also exposed the young Digambara to Sanghavi's views about Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of South and the many controversies that had arisen in the Jain community Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley at this time. Jaini's intellectual formation within this traditional and afterwards as Professor in the Graduate school at the same brand of Jain learning was a crucial factor in his scholarly institution.. development. It must also be regarded as virtually unique up to this time, because no one of Jaini's generation (nor, one
The structuring feature of his writings can be easily defined. suspects, anyone before it) could claim to have his familiarity
All his energies throughout his career have been devoted to the with the culture and practice of the two main sects, of Jainism.
elucidation of the manifold facets of what Indian scholars call However, his interests were by no means confined to Jainism.
sramanasamskrti, "the culture of the strivers", that is to say, Sanghavi had always insisted on the importance of the Pali
the religious, philosophical and literary achievements of the canon for understanding the Jain scriptures, and Jaini was
Buddhists and the Jains. Jaini's intellectual control over this encouraged by him to utilise the library, housed at the Gujarat
area has meant that he has been able to adopt various styles of Vidyapith, of Dharmananda Kosambi, India's most
investigation. Sometimes Buddhism and Jainism are distinguished scholar of Theravada Buddhism. Eventually, Jaini
approached by him as independent phenomena, or, as with resolved to continue his postgraduate work in Sri Lanka at the
the case of the Jaina Puranas, with reference to their engagement Vidyodaya Pirivena, a monastic training centre headed by the
with the encircling Hindu world. More often, however, Jaini Venerable Baddegama Piyaratana Mahathero, a one-time fellow
has been preoccupied with the interaction and overlapping of student of Kosambi. During his two years there, Jaini
the two great renouncer religions, with evidence from the one thoroughly familiarised himself with the Abhidharma Pitaka,
tradition being deployed so as to throw light on the other.