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NEWS FEATURE
THE STREAM WILL BECOME A FLOOD
Editor Atul K. Shah reflects on four years of Jain Spirit
COLCHESTER
T IS NOW FOUR YEARS SINCE THE FIRST ISSUE OF Jain Spirit was launched in Philadelphia and London. To Ldate, 17 magazines have been published, giving readers all over the world hundreds of articles on the Jain tradition, its wisdom, art, science and modern-day relevance. This is the first full-colour global magazine on Jainism in English. Founded by a group of people in the UK and North America, the magazine has demonstrated how alive and vibrant this tradition is and started to connect the global community like never before. From his home in Perth, Australia, a Jain can now discover what is happening all over the world and learn about how scientific, practical and artistic her/his tradition is - s/he does not even have to leave home to do so.
Young people, the torch bearers of the tradition, are now seeing their culture in a
LONDON new light, and cannot put the magazine down once they have opened it. Hundreds of new writers on this culture have been introduced to the
WORLD Jain community and beyond, new photographs and artwork and even original new cartoons have been published and shared across the globe. As founding editor, I sacrificed my highly successful professional career to make this happen. A dedicated team of full-time and freelance staff give their best energies and skills to publish the magazine regularly and spread it. Our volunteers in the UK and worldwide actively give their time, contacts and skills to make Jain Spirit grow. Personal donors and wellwishers generously gave their time or money, or sometimes both, to realise this unique vision. Scholars gave generously of their articles, advice and encouragement throughout the
process. Positive and complimentary endorsements from eminent people from all over the world continue to pour in even today. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those of you who have taken part in this vision and shared the dream, helping it become a reality.
Brother Reuben Thuku, a regular Jain Spirit contributor and an eminent speaker, told me last month during his brief
stopover in the UK that 'the stream must become a flood'. He knows that the Jain culture and wisdom is not only timely for this age, but is a key to lasting universal peace. A lot of people not brought up in the Jain tradition know very little about it, even though there is a good chance that millions out there would love to learn about Jainism if they had a good
introduction. Examples of such people include vegetarians. animal lovers, people who love India, its culture and spirituality, artists, nature lovers and students of ancient wisdom. As Ingrid Newkirk, founder of PETA, has said so beautifully, "millions out there are Jain - they just
don't know it." It is our collective responsibility to change this.
It is a huge challenge to educate, inform and spread because we are shy about our culture, introspective and lack confidence in our knowledge. Very often, when we tell others that we are Jain, we have to spell the word. There are reasons for this, the most important being that good quality Jain information in the English language is very rare. Jain Spirit is starting to build this team of writers and spread this knowledge, but there are still challenges ahead, especially
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Jain Spirit . December 2003 - February 2004
ILLUSTRATION: JAMES MATURIN-BAIRD
Jain Education International 2010_03
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