Book Title: Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline
Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi
View full book text
________________
8
Jain Philosophy in Historical Outline
underwent the most extraordinary evolutions and finally disappeared in the country of its origin."'1
Researches on Jainism
The study of Jainism which had long remained a neglected branch of Indology, due to the scarcity of original texts, was initiated by a first hand survey of the existing Jain sects of India, of their manners and customs, beliefs and superstitions, carried out by enthusiastic Europeans like Mackenzie, Buchanan and others. The interest further developed after the publication in the Asiatic Researches(180 three such reports of their investigations and personal observations which were immediately followed by Colebrooke's 'Observations on the Sect of the Jainas' in which it was for the first time that textual references, mainly from Bhadrabāhu's Kalpasūtra and Hemacandra's Abhidhānacintāmani, were frequently used. Thereafter in 1827 two important papers on Jainism, written by Delamaine and Buchanan Hamilton, were published in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society. 4 In the same year also came out Francklin's Researches in the Tenets of the Jains and the Buddhists which was the first book containing Jainism in its title. Wilson in his Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus and in other stray writings made a more systematic treatment of the subiect. His Descriptive Catalogue of the Mackenzie Collection which was published from Calcutta in 1828 refers to 44 South Indian Jain manuscripts.
That the interest thus created in the study of Jainism did not prove fruitless in succeeding years is amply testified in A. Guerinot's Essai de bibliographie Jaina (Paris 1906) and Répertoire d'épigraphie Jaina (1908). Hemacandra's Abhidhānacintamani, edited by Bohtlingk Rieu, came out with a German translation in 1847. In the next year (1848) appeared J. Stevenson's English rendering of Bhadrabāhu's Kalpasūtra along with the Navatattvaprakarana. In 1858, Weber edited Dhaneśvara's Satruñjavamāhātmya with a detailed introduction which was followed by Pavie's French analysis of the Padmāvaticaritra.
1Jacobi in ERE, VII, p. 470. *IX, pp. 44ff.
8ME, II, pp. 191-240; first published in 1807. In 1826 another study of Colebrooke came out, ibid. I pp. 402ff., to a subsequent edition of which Cowell added a minute analysis of ch. III of Mādhava's Sarvadarśanasamgraha in which the system of the Jains is expounded.
'I, pp. 431-38, 531-40.
