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each for Swetambars and Digambars. Whereas the three-storey Digambar Jain temple called Shri 1008 Mahavir Digambar Jain Mandir came into existence in 2006, the Swetambar Jain temple was constructed a few years ago. Interestingly, a periodic Jain pilgrimage tourism from India to Thailand and some other countries of the region has also begun to take place in recent years. Jakarta, Indonesia also hosts a small Jain community of about 80 families with an association Jain Social Group.
In other countries of the Asia-Pacific region, New Zealand had only 57 adherents of Jainism in its 2001 census. In Australian census the Jains are not listed separately and therefore they are enumerated along with the Hindus. Small communities of Jains are there in Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Sydney - the total amounting to about a thousand souls. There is a Jain temple in Canberra since March 2000, and another had come up in Melbourne in April 2008. In Melbourne an association called Melbourne Shwetambr Jain Sangh is active since 2002. Jain Society of Sydney is located at 38 Ourimbah Road, Mosman, Sydney.
United Kingdom Barrister Champatrai Jain was perhaps the first Jain to have gone to England for getting a degree in Law during 1862-67. Subsequently he visited Europe several times, studied Christianity, and wrote a few books on comparative religion (e g., Science, Jainism and Christianity, and Confluence of Opposites). The next Jain scholar to have visited Britain in 1896 and again in 1901 was Virchand R. Gandhi, who was instrumental at that time in getting a few Christians converted to Jainism in the US and the U.K. One such convert Mr. Herbert Warren wrote a book called Jainism in Western Garb (1912). In 1905, J. L. Jaini, a prominent Jain scholar, visited Britain where he wrote and published his well-known book Outlines of Jainism.
Besides these scholars a very few Jains immigrated into England either from India or East Africa until the mid-1960s. Since the late 1960s a small number of Jains began to migrate to the U. K. individually under the Commonwealth Immigrants Quota System. About the same time Jains from East Africa also began to settle in England, particularly following the introduction of the Voucher
95 | Jains in India and Abroad
