Jain Journal 2001 04

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

Page 30

JAIN JOURNAL: Vol-XXXV, No. 4 April 2001
should not be devalued as a whole because the scrutiny of these texts would supply us with sources for discovering hidden truth in unexpected and unintended places. This analysis also can be made in the case of original Jaina Sūtras which criticize Buddhism.
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Under these circumstances, the features of Jainism being introduced to Japanese scholars so far only through Buddhist canons, the mutual contact between Jainism and Buddhism is naturally confined to that of ancient period. As all of you know, the Buddhist sources, whose Sanskrit originals being almost entirely extinct, are available to us now-a-days in the form of Chinese and Tibetan translations, and besides this fact, Buddhist sources can supply us much information about the contact and inter-relation with Jainism in ancient times as well as with other schools of Indian thought.
Thanks to the Japanese scholarship, some Japanese scholars have produced many brilliant and praise-worthy works in the field of Buddhist Studies, having been much stimulated by the rapid progress made by western scholars in the critical study of Indology since about one century. It is no exaggeration to say that since long the initiative has been taken in the field of Buddhology by Japanese scholars, and their works are highly estimated by some western scholars.
The critical study of Buddhism naturally gave rise to the study of other schools of Indian thought, with which Buddhist source materials have much to do in connection with supplying us much information regarding the priority of these schools especially of Jainism.
But they were confronted with the difficulties as a result of the adverse academic set-up of the country. However, such has been the tragic reality for Indological study in Japan, that those researches centred about Buddhism, mainly based on the methodology of western scholars and not with reference to the traditional lore in India. It was due to the hitherto existing peculiar and specific circumstances of our country that Buddhism has been for a long time predominant as a guiding principle of Japanese people, and yet its such status on the greater part should be ascribed to scholars themselves in Japan. Jainism was not an exception to such a stage.
Inspite of these unfavourable circumstances, i.e., the definite lack of source materials, long-standing peculiar traditional background, and the handicap of linguistic problem, it remains with us a matter of pride that few but important works have been produced. But these handicaps in the studies of Jainism have not yet been overcome. It is of this very reason that there have not been persistent efforts made so