Jainism

Author(s): M R Gelra
Publisher: Createspace

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"It was in the year 1807 that in the Asiatic Researches (Calcutta and London), Vol. IX, there appeared three reports published under the title "Account of the Jains".
These publications were pioneers in nature, which were followed by other publications later on, and they initiated the Jain research nearly two hundred years ago. A leap was taken by some of the German scholars who could collect some duplicates of Jain Swetamber Agams and sent them to the library of Berlin.
In this way a rich collection of Agams and other works reached Berlin including the oldest version of the famous Brihatkatha of Gunadhya and they were taken care of by the leading Indologist of those times, Albert Weber. In his painstaking work of many years, he immersed into the then almost impossible jungle of entire scriptures. Prakrit knowledge was then very limited and Jain manuscripts were practically unknown till then. He prepared a magnificent catalogue in 1880 of those manuscripts. In its foreword he writes, “The good deal of my power of vision is carried in them" With the help of that catalogue he gave the first summary of the canonical Agams and initiated Jain studies in Germany. It became possible because Jain's have kept the Prakrit language living. That is why the literature of their religion has found rather early great sponsors and researchers particularly in Germany.
The first translations of Jain sources into German date back to the middle of the nineteenth century when Ottovon Boehtlingk published a German version of Hemacandra's Abhidanacintamani (1848). Albrecht Weber published some parts of Satrunjayamahatmya (1858) and Bhagwati (1866). After these beginnings, and encouraged by A. Weber, several German scholars set to work on the Jain writings.
We should particularly mention Earnst Leumann (1859-1931) and H. Jacobi whose works on Jainism are the most important in the early period. To present date, Schubring and L. Alsdorf continued the work.
Hence, the contribution made by German Indologists in the field of Jain studies is tremendous. Though Albrecht Weber (1825-1937) was the first German Scholar dedicated to the exploration of Jainism, the contribution of Hermann Jacobi (1850-1937) is no less. He discovered during a trip to even remote areas of Rajasthan that Jainism has a religious and philosophical tradition of its own.
During this trip, he encountered Jain monks and scholars who handed scriptures necessary for his researches to him. He studied the Jain manuscripts and translated some of the Jain Agams subscribed in two volumes in the series of 'Sacred books of the East'. The western findings proved that the Jain sect had already attained a prominent position in the religious spheres of India.
During Twenty - fifth centenary celebrations of Lord Mahavira an International conference was organized by Jain Vishva Bharati, Ladnun, Rajasthan at Delhi, in which Prof. Ludwig Alsdorf of Germany participated. In his speeches, he described the difficult
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