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Jain. He addressed the World Fellowship of Faiths in Chicago on 30th August 1933. A third name often mentioned in this context is that of Sri J. L. Jaini of the World Jain Mission of Aliganj, Etah, India, who had traveled to the U.S., the U.K., Germany and some other European countries.
The first Jain settlers in US had arrived in 1944. For the next 30 years a very small number of Jains continued to immigrate and settle in the US. Meanwhile, two Shvetambar Jain monks Shri Chitrabhanuji and Muni Shushil Kumarji did considerably towards propagating Jainism in North America and Europe. The former first visited North America in 1971 and had established many Jain meditation centres and contributed substantially through his discourses and publications. Similarly Muni Shushil Kumarji who first visited North America in 1975 was instrumental in establishing the International Mahavir Jain Mission (IMJM) at Blairstown in New Jersey in 1991, and its numerous branches in the U. S., Canada and other parts of the world. The Blairstown IMJM also known as Siddachalam (The Jain Tirth) has emerged as a major Jain pilgrimage centre in North America. The Canadian headquarter of the IMM is located at Scarborough, Ontario.
Until 1950s there was no Jain diasporic community worth the name in the U.S. From 1960s onwards a considerable number of professionals, academics and students began to settle in North America. During mid-1960s the Jain population in North America was estimated at about 15,000; a majority of them being Gujaratis. By the early 1980s this figure increased to “20,000 plus”, constituting about one-fourth of the total Jain diasporic population (Dundas 1992: 232).
A statistical profile of the Jain community given in the 1986 Directory of Jains shows that the majority of the respondents were either engineers (33.1%) or in the medical field (19.8%); even though Jains are known as businessmen in India, a small percentage (12.1%) are self-employed in the United States" (Williams 1988: 64). By 1990s the population of Jains in the U.S. had increased to about 50,000 and presently it is estimated at 150,000. In the U. S. 80 percent of Jains live in ten states, dominated by New Jersey (16 percent), California
99 | Jains in India and Abroad
