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Les Jains Aujourd'hui dans le monde, by Pierre Paul Amiel (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2000)
BOOK REVIEWED BY AIDAN RANKIN
Les Jains is the first significant study of Jainism produced in France in recent years with a broad readership in mind. It therefore combines scholarly insight with accessibility, history with modern developments, comparative religion with narrative and anecdote. Pierre Amiel, the author, is very concerned to distinguish Jainism from the Vedic, or Hindu traditions and early Buddhism. Jains share important aspects of belief and practice with Hindus and Buddhists. They celebrate the same holy days as Hindus and often employ Brahmins to officiate at temples. The laws of life of Patnajali's Yoga Sutras - nonviolence, truthfulness, integrity, chastity, nonattachment - correspond well to the five vows of Jainism. Bhagvan Mahavir was a contemporary of the Buddha, whose teaching shared with those of the Jains an emphasis on asceticism and equality. Buddhists, Jains and Hindus also share a belief in karma, the law of cause and effect.
Jainism's overlaps with these traditions have confused many Western outsiders, who have interpreted it as one of the many subdivisions of Hinduism or as an outgrowth of Buddhism. Louis Renou, a French scholar from the previous generation, wrote of Jainism: 'It was, in fact, its resemblance to Buddhism that most interested those who first investigated it'. He goes on to speak of it as 'a religion of austere aspect, that might be described as Buddhism's darker aspect'. This situation is complicated by the fact that Jainism is not a proselytising religion, like Buddhism or Christianity. It does not seek converts and most Jains do not discuss in detail their philosophy but
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| concentrate on living it out. Nor do Jains see themselves as rivals to other religions with any need to compete with them for publicity. It has been all too easy therefore for Western scholars to define the Jains in terms of other faiths rather than on their own terms.
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It is this attitude that M. Amiel seeks to refute in Les Jains. He successfully introduces his readers to Jainism as a distinctive, ancient faith and system of values with pre-Vedic roots, so that it is perhaps the closest to an original Indian philosophy. M. Amiel is fascinated by the way in which Jainism has preserved its distinctiveness with subtle, calm determination, and has influenced other faiths and philosophies. The insights of Jainism, he believes, have a lasting value and a relevance, indeed an increasing relevance, to the modern world.
M. Amiel also refutes many of the stereotypes of austerity associated with Jains in the popular imagination. These have arisen largely because austerity has been the most obvious outward manifestation of Jainism for non-Jains. However M. Amiel shows that tapas or austerity is but one facet of the Jain way of life, and that Jains are also highly engaged with the modern world and innovative in science, education, commerce and the arts. The Jain contribution, he argues, has been immense, especially for a small and in many ways tightly knit community. Jains are also remarkably internationalist in their approach. They preserve their distinctiveness, but spread themselves across the Earth and seem to integrate and make their mark wherever they appear.
Like earlier Indologists, such as Helmuth von Glassenapp, M. Amiel is For Private & Personal Use Only
Pierre Amiel with the Indian Ambassador to Paris at the book launch.
interested by the Jain emphasis on the individual soul and individual salvation. This emphasis does much to explain the quiet determination that characterises so many Jain lives.
Editor's Note: Pierre Amiel is a very unique selfless soldier of Jainism in France. This is his third book, and for years he has worked tirelessly using his personal resources, to promote this culture in a country which knows hardly anything about it. Sadly, the day after this book launch at the Indian High Commission in Paris on 28th October his dear wife Marie Claire, passed away on the train from Paris to Nice. She was a pillar of support to him and I am sure all readers of Jain Spirit from all over the world will join me in offering our condolences. May her soul rest in eternal peace. Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.
The book can be ordered from diffusion.harmattan@wanadoo.fr or postal address: L'Harmattan, 5-7 Rue De l'Ecole Polytechnique, F-75005 Paris, France.
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