Jain Journal 1999 07

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

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JAIN JOURNAL : Vol-XXXIV, No. 1 July 1999
knowledge of the methods of research and with a view to establishing close contact with the German scholars working on Indological subjects and especially on Jain literature, the great scholar, Dr. Hermann Jacobi immediately came from Bonn specially to meet me in Hamburg and invited me with great affection to come there and stay with him for some months" (Preface by Jina Vijaya Muni, in Jacobi 1946:ii). The 'opening' of Jain libraries and the revival of interest in the study of Jainism by European Orientalists is today merely a footnote in the history of the Jain renaissance in the late 19th and 20th centuries, if only by virtue of the fact that much of the task of critically editing and commenting the literary tradition of the Jain heritage has been taken over by secular Jain research institutions like the L.D. Institute and others, who are also increasingly interested in the study of comparative religion. Yet the quest for the transformation of Jainism into a worldreligion has only begun, since to date it is practised merely by a small proportion of the Indian population, with a distinctive caste and class background. In the eyes of P.S. Jaini (1990) the claim of universality is yet to be realised : "Having not confined to the original homeland, India; having made new homes in all parts of the world, now there is the opportunity, indeed a duty, to make this benevolent religion accessible to the whole world" (p.9). But in order to make it universally acceptable as well, doctrinal and organisational adjustments might prove to be inevitable.
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