Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

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Jain Philosophy in Historical Outline
Weber's and Bühler's researches opened up a new horizon of probabilities. The Jain manuscripts of the Royal Library of Berlin mainly collected by Bühler, were indeed of great help to Jacobi whose critical edition of Bhadrabāhu's Kalpasūtra (1879) had come to be fundamental for all further researches. In fact the credit of representing Jainism in its entirety to the cultivated readers all over the world goes to Jacobi upon whom was bestowed the honorary title of Jainadraśana-divākara by the Jains of India. The canonical works edited by Jacobi laid the basis of a critical and scientific study of Jainism. His translations of the basic texts of Jainism in Sacred Books of the East, Vols. XXII and XLV (1884) were also of immense help to the researchers.
Hoernle's critical edition of the Uvāsagadasão (1888-90) was another landmark in the history of Jain research because it demonstrated the fact that the Jain texts are indispensable not only for the study of Jainism itself, but of other religious sects of India as well. In Appendix II of the said work we have an interesting account of Gośāla Mankhaliputra and his views, and this had become the basis of his famous article on Ajivīkism. Klatt worked on the Jain bio-bibliographical materials in eight volumes but no more than 55 pages could be printed in 1892 as a specimen of his work by Weber and Leumann. Religious and philosophical schools current in the days of the Buddha and Mahāvīra became the subject matter of F.O. Schrader's thesis Uber den Stand der indischen philosophie zur Ziet Mahāvīras und Buddhas which came out from Strassburg in 1902. Independent works on different aspects of Jainism and Jain culture also began to make their appearances from the last quarter of the nineteenth cen
produce a comprehensive work under the title Ubersicht uber die Āvaśyaka Literature. Steinthal's thesis Specimen der Nāyādhanımak ahā came out in 1881 and further researches on this subject were made by Huttemann. His thesis Die Jñāta Erzählungen im sechsten Anga, based on the Nāyādhamakahā came out in 1907 and the same year saw the publication of Barnett's critical edition of Antagadadasão. The complete bibliography of European and of Indian literature concerning the Jains up to the year 1906 is given in Guerinot's Essai de bibliographie jaina (Annales du Musee Guimet, Bibliotheque d'E'tudes, VII) and further notices on this subject were furnished by him in 1909 (JAS, II, pp. 47ff.) An account of the Jain studies in Italy up to 1911 is to be found in the Indological bibliography in RDSO, V, pp. 219-71.
ERE, I, pp. 259ff.