World Jain Conference 1995 6th Conference

Author(s): Satish Jain
Publisher: Ahimsa International

Page 86

JAIN STUDIES IN THE WEST
Dr. Noel King, Santa Cruz, CA Dr. Surendra Singhvi, Spring Valley, OH, U.S.A.
Early Western Knowledge of Jainism
Many westerners well versed in European culture had read and wondered at the stories brought back from ancient India by the Greeks. They were told that there were in that far-off land naked philosophers who gave themselves to the solitary; neither they possessed home nor material, and could not be coerced even by Alexander himself. They observed strict continence, ate little and willingly gave themselves to death. The stories are rather in a muddle because even to this day few scholars versed in Indian lore and the western classical languages have bothered to go over these accounts with care and detail they deserve.
However, a discernable eye that knows something about Jainism and the monastic features of its holy people suggest that the medieval Cathari's may have had contacts with the Jains and thereby were influenced. This is indeed quite possible, though the connecting link may be the overlap of Mani's teachings with Jainism. Study of Jainism Before Gandhi
A century before the arrival of Virchand Gandhi to the West, the work of the Orientalists and the missionaries in India were quite exhaustive in 1790s-1820s. In this regard, the account of the German scholarship in Jainology is very rich. Dr. George Buhler (1837-1898) who taught at Elphinstone College, Bombay from 1863 to 1878 collected large number of Jain manuscripts; established the antiquity of Jain ascetic lines of spiritual and teaching descent from inscriptional studies and wrote books on various subjects.
Herman Jacobi (1850-1937) produced two volumes on Jain texts. In Boston with its Harvard Indological scholars, the first Indian work reaching U.S. is a book printed and published by the American Mission Press in Bombay in the 1840s. Its title page speaks of:
"Historical researches on the origins of the Bauddha and Jaina religions, embracing the leading tenets of their system as found prevailing in various countries."
- James Bird esq, M.R.A.S., F.R.G.S., Bombay Printed at the American Mission Press
T.Graham, Printer, 1847 The book is beautifully printed with colour-tinted works of lithographic art; describes a colossal image of a Tirthankara as 'words cannot well convey an idea of this magnificent sculpture;' or of the Jaina ascetics as 'the ultimate object is to obtain a state of perfect apathy or quiescene through the practice of abstraction and mortification. Kalpasutra and Nava Tatva translation was done by Rev.J.Stevenson *1847). Life and Stories of Jaina Saviour Parsvanatha is another valuable work on Jainism published by Prof. Maurice Bloomfield, who was born in Austria and moved to Milwaukee at the age of four. He studied at Chicago, Furnam in South Carolina and Yale; went as a Fellow to John