Jinamanjari 1998 04 No 17

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

Page 88

The 12th Annual Conference Report
It was held on 27th of September 1997 at Otani university.' Nearly 50 scholars from all over Japan attended the conference; their interest mainly lying in Jainism itself or its relation with Buddhism. Four scholars read their papers concerning various fields of Jaina studies.
Mr. Sato Hiromue discussed the Jaina epistemology according to Yaśovijaya's Jaina Tarka Bhāşā. Sato observed that the Jaina theory of perception is believed to have been influenced mainly by Buddhism but a closer study of the object of avagraha shows that the orthodox Nyāya school on perception is similar to that of Jainism.
After living in Ahmedabad, India for a year and his socioethno study of Jains there, Yamaguchi presented lives of Jains in India through a religious ceremony. His participation in Paryusan ceremony, wherein Bhadrankasūri and Jambūvijaya and their disciples delivered religious discourses and recited the Kalpasūtra, was presented through some 40 slide films.
The third paper, Textual Problems in the Agama, was presented by Mr. Watanabhe Kenji. Pointing to a verse in an Āgama which describes a Jaina monk wearing garment, Watanabhe said that this contradicts the Jaina tenets of acelatā, nudity. He attributed such problems to (1) the existence of various recessions before the Āgamas were put to writing, and (ii) the chronological standard of the Āgamic texts is not always correct in the sense that a written portion with śloka not necessarily older than other part.
Mr. Yamazaki Moriichi presented - Internet Application for the Study of Jaina Agamas. He explained some of his published verse indices and reversed verse indices of the Agamas and about home page containing Jaina textual resources compiled with the help of personal computer. He also gave home page address: http://www,sendaict.ac.jp/~ousaka/. According to Yamazaki, using electric devices and the resources, a questionable verse can be corrected by comparing other verses which are similar in metric.
Lastly, some of the participants expressed the hope to publish Japanese translations of main Jaina Āgamas. [
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