The Jain 1988 07

Author(s): Natubhai Shah
Publisher: UK Jain Samaj Europe

Page 45

12
TH
QUARTER JAIN
EDITORIAL
A ACONCERN
.
The
નો કાનેથી મહપણે પમણ
We the Jains of Leicester are looking outward, to Jains in other parts of England, to Jains in Europe, and to those people in Leicester and in the rest of England who are not Jains. To them Jainism is something unknown, a name or not even that. Do you think that Jain ideas and principles have something to offer to them? That, in any case, they should know a little about Jainism, who the Jains are? It is in the belief that Jainism, a religion particularly suited to the modern scientific world, should look outward as well as inward that JAIN NEWS has been re-born as the THE JAIN
This is a change of name but it is more than that. As you can see, THE JAIN has a new format. The change to this new style, to good printing, is thanks to the generosity of the advertisers and others. In this newlook journal the content also is new. One new feature is the large section in English. This symbolises the outward-looking policy of THE JAIN. We want people, Jains and non-Jains,
The
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THE JAIN
The first issue of THE JAIN was dated June 1982. That is not very long ago, but in fact the new journal was the old Jain News reborn.Jain News had run as a cyclostyled news sheet for several years before that. At a meeting of interested people some time early in 1982 the project for a new quarterly magazine was discussed and the plans were finalised. What would it be called? Several proposals were made. Then somebody suggested THE JAIN. 'I like that' said somebody else, and the short simple title was adopted. From the start the new journal was bilingual. On the front page two editorials, one in Gujarati and one in English, set the trend. Inside the earlier pages were in English and the Gujarati section followed. From the start THE JAIN was intended to have a wider circulation than the local Jain community. The English editorial expressed it like this:
The Jain
EDITORIAL
THE HOUSE OF N
who can read English, but not an Indian language, to be able to read the new JAIN. In it they will find news and information on Jainism, on Jain personalities and events, on what it means to be a Jain in this moderrn Western world. But, and this is very important, THE JAIN will never forget that it is the journal of Jain Samaj (Europe). Leicester the majority of whose founder members are more at home in Gujarati than in English. So the articles, news, events in Gujarati are. as you can see, a prominent feature of THE JAIN. Moreover, as a symbol of the wider audience of the new JAIN, articles will also be published in Hindi.
Here it is then: THE JAIN. We hope you like it. THE JAIN is for Jains, both young and old. It is for non-Jains as well. It has one fundamental principle or belief, that is the belief that the Jain religion, perhaps the oldest religion in the world, has something to offer to the modern scientific Western world.