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54: Śramana, Vol 62, No. 2 April-June 2011
of the 20th century, and only accessible for the courts through 'expert' witnesses, was partly due to the opposition of 'orthodox' Jains who in view of the "large number of differences in our social customs" were against the creation of a uniform Jaina Law and of "a central guiding and directing body working all over the country" (Latthe16 1906: 31f.); 17 particularly in view of the fact that in Harnabh Pershad v. Mandil Das 27 C. 379 (1899) "the homogeneity of the Jainas was recognized by holding that Jaina customs of one place were relevant as evidence of the existence of the same custom amongst Jainas of other places" (J. L. Jaini 1916: 22).18 In 1904, members of the Young Jaina Men's Association (later All-India Jaina Association) and the Digambara All-India Jaina Mahasabhā reiterated earlier suggestions to collect "materials from Jaina Sastras for compiling a Jain Law like the Hindu Law" (M. S. Jaini 1904: i), i.e. as a "code of Jaina customs" (J. L. Jaini 1905: 144). Already in 1886, Pandit Padmaraja published 'A Treatise on Jain Law and Usages'. But it contained merely selections from medieval Digambara codifications of local customs which reflected southern Indian practices, for instance of cross-cousin marriage. Only in 1910 a Jaina Law Committee was formed by the Mahasabhā to formulate a common legal code and to claim rights and privileges for 'the Jaina community as a whole' in the new Legislative Assembly. 19 Barrister Jagmander Lal Jaini's (1881-1927) landmark translation of the Bhadrabahu Samhita was published in 1916. After the Montague Declaration in 1917, the Jaina Political Association was set up by the same circle of predominately Digambara Jaina intellectuals to create a unitary political representation for the Jains.20 Following the publication of Hari Singh Gour's (1869-1949). The Hindu Code in 1919, the Jaina Mitra Mandala in Delhi, also a Digambara organization, created the Jaina Law Society under the leadership of the Barristers Jagmander Lal Jaini (1881-1927) and Champat Ray Jain (18671942) to refute the "misrepresentations" of Jainism in this text,2 whose second edition was amended accordingly. In due course the
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