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16 : JAINS TODAY IN THE WORLD
In India, Jains are a minority asking for a national specific status. They shine through their marvellous temples that generations of supporters have built all over the sub-continent, through the significant activities that their laymen and women exert especially in the economic, intellectual and political fields and through the example their ascetics give to the world of profound spirituality, tolerance and non-violence.
Outside India, Jain communities are composed of families whose householders and grown-up children work in trade, banking, jewellery, industry, liberal professions, etc. They do not take part in any form of violent activities like butcher, slaughterer, tanner, seller of skins, natural silk, alcohol, wine, etc. They live in Great Britain especially in London, Leicester, Manchester, Leeds, etc. In the USA we find Jains in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Cincinnati, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Pittsburgh, Washington, etc. In Canada there are Jains in Alberta, Toronto, Mississauga, etc. All are perfectly integrated, even if their women continue to wear their beautiful “sāri" like in India.
Jain communities exist in Europe, especially in Belgium (a temple has been recently inaugurated in Antwerp), in Germany and in the Netherlands. Some families are living in France, especially in Paris, and in provincial cities where they practice their cult at home without any proselytism. There are Jains in Eastern and Southern Africa, in Australia, Japan, Nepal, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, New Zeeland, etc.
As a general rule those who migrated, like to maintain their tenets and their faith. They return periodically to India to places of their origin to trace their roots, to do pilgrimage to their sacred sites, to get reconnected with their ascetics of whom they are separated because these hardly travel outside their region. They like to listen to their religious teachings and so to maintain the feeling of belonging to a long Indian tradition.
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