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Sumati-Jñāna It is more than likely that, during many centuries, Jain traders travelled outside India but they never established communities in the various countries they went to sell or buy products. As concern the Jain missionaries sent by Emperor Samprati to Nepal4 or those who followed Alexander the Great on its return to Greece, we have very few information'. They were not numerous and no long report has been made on them. Dr Bhuvanendra Kumar, in his book "Jainism in America”, makes reference to some Jain influences in Persia, Afghanistan, Turkistan, Arabian Gulf, Burma and on some religious movements' but the only valuable information on the migrations of Jains have been given by British reporters in the XVIII century AD and they concern only Nepal. What is absolutely sure it is that, until very recently, Jain ascetics never went outside India, in accordance with their absolute obligation to travel barefoot and to never use means of transports like animals, carriages, motored vehicles, boats, planes and the same.
The first great migrations of Jain laity appeared in the XIXth century. Dr Natubhai Shah in his book "Jainism - The World of Conquerors”% writes: "A wave of Jain migrations begins in the second half of the XIXth century. With economic opportunities becoming available in British colonial territories, many Jain families moved abroad, mainly in Africa, seeking to improve their standard of living. They settled in great number in Zanzibar, Tanganyika, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Fiji...As concern Zanzibar, after a prosperous period, with erection of temples, Jains fearing to be persecuted departed to other parts of East Africa". They went especially in Kenya? where they joined those who had already emigrated there directly from India since the early part of that century. In the 1970's, some of them migrated to UK but a significant number chose to remain in Kenya and became Kenyan citizens. All of them are there very active on trades and important professions, with schools and beautiful temples in places like Mombasa and Nairobi. But, as said in "Young Jains Newsletter" dated December 1990"numerous were those who did not practiced Jain tenets, who retained for themselves the incredible wealth they had made, did very little towards the poor local inhabitants and had little knowledge of Jainism”. So, members of “Young Jains” from UK decided to create a section of their association to try to obtain changes by the way of their Kenyans fellows. They have since obtained some encouraging results on the matter.
As concern the West', three great events, at the end of the XIXth century AD, gave to Jainism its right place in universities and scholarly "milieu" as a great religion of India. First, various German, French, Swiss and Dutch scholars made researches on that philosophy practiced by different communities in many parts of the Indian sub-continent. The great German Indianist, Hermann Jacobi, in the preface of his translation into English of the “Ācārānga Sūtra" and of the “Kalpa Sūtra” afforded the proof of the specificity of Jainism in giving clear indications. He made also publish in 1895 in the same series of “Sacred Books of the East” his translations into English of the “Uttaradhyayana Sūtra" and of the "Sūtrakritānga Sūtra" that gave very important information to scholars and searchers
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