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BOOK REVIEW
A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF JAINISM (up to 1000 A.D.) by Dr. Asim KUMAR CHATTERJEE, pub. by Firma KLM Pvt. Ltd. Calcutta, 1978. Pages 400. Price Rs. 75/
The author is a comparatively young but promising scholar of ancient Indian history and culture, who has to his credit works like The Cult of Skanda-Karttikeya in Ancient India (1970) and Ancient Indian Literary and Cultural Tradition (1974). The present work appears to be his first, albeit a praiseworthy, attempt in the field of Jaina history. He has taken pains in gleaning his material from a good number of primary and secondary sources and in presenting it in a handy readable form, substantiating his account with relevant references. His approach is justifiably critical, but at times it appears to become too critical, even verging on the dogmatic. This has led to quite a number of unwarranted inferences, surmises and conjectures. Some of the author's preconceived notions and deeprooted biases, if not prejudices, have coloured his theories which he does not tire in hammering down the throat of the reader time and again. Cases of misinterpretation, distortion or twisting of facts are not rare. To give a few examples, Dr. Chatterjee seems to have started with the presumptions -(i) that in ancient times, prior to the alleged rise of Jainism and Buddhism, the entire population of the country was Brahmanical and no other religious system, cultural current, way of life and thinking except the Vedic which did include the Bhagavata, Saiva and Vaisnava forms, was prevalent in India ; (ii) that Jainism like Buddhism is a heretical sect which 'Originated some 800 years before the birth of Christ, as the first genuine protest against the Brahmanical religion ; (iii) that 'the penultimate Tirthankara Parsva was the real founder of Jainism, who preached his new religion around 800 B.C. ; (iv) that the conception of the earlier 22 Tirthankaras, including Rsabha and Aristanemi, dates since the post-Mauryan times (3rd-2nd century B.C.) ; (v) that Mahavira was a junior contemporary of the Buddha, although he died a few years before the latter ; (vi) that 'Lord Mahavira died only in the 2nd quarter of the 5th century B.C., and not earlier, as supposed by many Jaina writers, but this we would like to discuss in a separate Appendix'. (p. 108). The promised discussion is nowhere to be found in the present volume. Dr. Chatterjee does not specifically mention the date anywhere, but indirectly hints that it must
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