The Jain 1988 07

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

Page 95

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The reader can reasonably become exasperated by all this hair-splitting. It is by no means unique to Jainism but has been the method of seeking or explaining knowledge by theologians of all religious colours. Whether it is true or not that medieval Christian thinkers debated solemnly how many angels could sit on the head of a pin, this type of thinking was certainly commonly found among the great theologians of the Middle Ages. Often, of course, the numbered categories have a mnemonic purpose: the student can remember ten types of this, twelve of that (just as many of us do today when faced with rote learning).
Does this work, and others like it, have any value for us today? Yes and no. No to the extent that we try to read it as sacred literature, having some sort of holy character in itself. Yes in that it does show a subtle mind wrestling with problems which are very difficult to elucidate. Perhaps in the twentieth century we should prefer to use the categories of modern science as a more acceptable framework in an attempt to understand the fundamentals of Jain philiosophy' but the work of these early writers is the ladder on which we stand in trying to grasp the truth which is always just out of reach.
JA I NISM IN WESTERN GARB
Jainism has attracted the attention of relatively writers, some of it very good and helpful, some few Europeans. Unlike Buddhism which has of it, we must admit, of dubious quality. made a tremendous appeal to large numbers of Westerners, as reflected in shelves of books on What is curiously lacking, however, is any the subject, Western interest in Jainism has very considerable body of what may be described as largely been confined to a few learned scholars. the middle-range material by Western writers, From massive and scholarly editions of the Pali books, that is, and indeed articles, which literature of Theravada Buddhism, translations explain Jainism for the average intelligent of the sutras and other Japanese and Chinese reader. There is no equivalent, for example, of works of the Mahayana schools, down to popular that excellent guide to Buddhism by a wellpaperbacks, pamphlets and books meant for a known English Buddhist, Christmas Humphreys, wide audience, Buddhism has been served by which has retained a place in the list of Penguin countless writers in every language of Europe. Books for several decades, and which must have Jainism on the other hand has been largely the been the introduction to Indian religion for very preserve of specialist Indologists who have many people. Perhaps the nearest is the book given us useful translations of many of the more by Mrs Sinclair Stevenson, The Heart of Jainism, important Jain texts. Apart from these, there is a published as long ago as 1915, and for all its considerable corpus of writing in English by sympathetic stance, written from an avowedly Indian Jains, work of very varied quality. Much of Christian missionary point of view. The modern it is valuable and scholarly. Much of it is general reader will go to the valuable book The intended for the average reader, not the scholar Jaina Path of Purification, if he or she wants to and thus serves to put Jainism in its rightful see Jainism up-to-date. This work was published place in the religious tradition and the current in the United States and is the work of a religious practice of India. There is a large distinguised scholar of Indian religion P. S. Jaini. devotional literature, hagiography and But, although his English is faultless and the collections of improving stories, by Indian Jain learned author is fully assimilated in Western
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