The Jain 1988 07

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

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the Jains until the late eighteenth century, although obviously Europeans in india must have come into contact with individual members of the Jain community. At the end of the eighteenth century a new spirit of inquiry into Asian civilisations in general is manifest in Europe, and perhaps particularly in England. The formation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, precursor of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, exemplifies this, and it is in the journal of the Society, Asiatick Researches, in 1807, that we find the earliest substantial particulars in English of the Jains. These include three articles by Major Colin Mackenzie totalling twenty-six pages: (1) 'Account of the Jains, collected from a priest of this sect; at Mudgeri : translated by Cavelly Boria, Brahmen'; (2) 'Notices of the Jains, received from Charukirti Acharya, their chief pontiff at Belligola in Mysore'; and (3) Historical and legendary account of Belligola, communicated by the high priest at that station'. Belligola is obviously Sravana Belgola : Mudgeri (Mudigere) is also in Mysore state. Mackenzie had obtained his information at first hand. So also did Doctor F. Buchanan, whose journal during travels in the same place, of the Jains given to him by Pandita Acharya Swami, 'The Guru of the Jains'. H.T. Colebrooke, who also contributed an article, obtained his information from conversations with Jain priests as well as from books (some of which came from a prominent Jain who had lately converted to the worship of Vishnu and was discarding his Jain books). With the publication of these papers, Western study of Jainism got off to a good start. It was appreciated that Jainism was not just a Hindu sect, though it took longer to dispel the belief that it was a sect of Buddhism. In part this arose from a fallacious identification of Indrabhuti Gautama, Mahavir's ganadhara, with Gautama the Buddha, but of course there are sufficient similarities (in spite of fundamental differences) to mislead the casual observer. The fallacy of the common origin of Jainism and Buddhism was finally laid to rest by Hermann Jacobi, a great German scholar, in his introduction to his English translation of Jain sutras, published in the Sacred Books of the East series in 1884 (with a second volume in 1895). Although not the first published translations of Jain sacred books, Jacobi's work is a landmark in Jain studies on account of its scholarly standard and its
publication in a widely accessible series. Most of the interest in Jainism in the nineteenth and early twentieth cetnuries stemmed from detached and serious scholarship, with German, and later in addition Italian, Indologists taking the lead. However this was also the era of most vigorous Christian missionary effort, and the study of Asian religions in general was often motivated by the desire to refute the beliefs of prospective converts. This does not mean that the missionaries were always unsympathetic. Mrs Sinclair Stevenson, whose book The Heart of Jainism, published in 1915, is still widely read, was clear that Jain beliefs were misguided, but she compares the teachings of Mahavira and Jesus who each proclaimed 'the beauty of poverty of spirit, of meekness, of righteousness, of mercy, of purity, of peace, and of patient suffering' (p. 292). This book, the result of close observation, sympathetic inquiry and serious research, is another landmark for it made available at last a readable comprehensive general account of Jainism, even though it was soon superseded, for those who can read German, by H. Von Glasenapp's Der Jainismus (1925). Jainism remains still very largely an academic study as far as Europeans and Americans are concerned. Outside a small group of Indologists, students of religion and social anthropologists, Jainism is very little known in the Western World. Let us now turn from the Western world's view of the Jains to the Jains in the Western World. Although Jain monks were reluctant, until relatively recently, to open their great libraries to outside scholars, Jains have generally shown willingness, often eagerness, to explain their religion to outsiders. This is not from a desire to proselytise, but for the sake of mutual understanding and to encourage adherence to those principles of Jainism which are of universal validity. As we have seen above, the informants of the writers in Asiatick Researches included at least two acharyas. In 1893 an international congress of religions was held in Chicago. The organisers sought the participation of a great Jain scholar, Pujya Acharya Shri Vijayanandsuri Maharaj, known as Atmaramji. As a monk the Archarya was unable to go but he realised the importance of the occasion and deputed a layman, Shri Virchand Gandhi, in his place. Virchand Gandhi gave
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