Jains in India and Abroad

Author(s): Prakash C Jain
Publisher: International Summer School for Jain Studies

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be added that the Jain identity cannot be divorced from its sect/subsect as well as the regional-linguistic context in which a particular Jain caste or community reside. Additionally, the divide between northern and southern Digambar Jainism can be fruitful in contextualizing any sociological analysis (See Carrithers 1988; Jain, R.K. 1999). More or less the same is true about other religious/ethnic communities in India, including the Hindus.
Jain Philosophy
In India Jainism as well as Buddhism has since long been recognized as a heterodox philosophical system. The traditional Indian philosophers regarded the two systems as nastik (non-believers, i.e., non-believers in the authority of the Vedas). As such, they are not part of the Hindu Shad darshanas (Six philosophical systems). Nevertheless, they have been recognized as formidable, autonomous and independent philosophical systems which merit attention in Indian philosophical discourses. In the West, however, a number of scholars until the late 19th century treated Jainism either as a sect of Hinduism or as an offshoot of Buddhism (Barth 1969: 151; Eliot 1962; Lilly cited in Shah 1932; Weber 1878; Wilson 1861: 344). As Dasgupta (1963: 169) explained:
Notwithstanding the radical differences in their philosophical notions, Jainism and Buddhism which were originally both orders of monks outside the pale of Brahmanism, present some resemblances in outward appearances, and some European scholars who became acquainted with Jainism through inadequate samples of Jaina literature easily persuaded themselves that it was an offshoot of Buddhism.
Thanks to the researches of a number of German Indologists, (Buhler 1963; Jacobi 1946), Jainism is no longer considered merely a sect of Hinduism, or an offshoot of Buddhism. In the words of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (1969: 73): "Buddhism and Jainism were certainly not Hinduism or even the Vedic Dharma. Yet they arose in India and were integral parts of Indian life, culture and philosophy. A Buddhist or Jain in India is a hundred percent product of Indian thought and culture, yet neither is a Hindu by faith."
24 Jains in India and Abroad