World Jain Conference 1995 6th Conference

Author(s): Satish Jain
Publisher: Ahimsa International

Page 90

International Mahavir Jain Mission, USA & Canada (1986) It was founded by Acarya Sushil Kumarji. It is involved in Jain Campls during the summer months of August both at Siddhachalam and Niagra Falls, Canada. The Toronto organization often promotes Jain Seminars in Canadian universities. And in conjunction with Jain Society of Toronto, it produced shows on Jainism for public television in 1989-90.
Jain Meditation and Philosophy (1981) It is established by its President Irena Upenick. Mainly caters to westerners on meditation, vegetarianism, fasting and Jaina basic philosophy. Independently it promotes Jaina precepts and practise among westerners through networking.
Rooplal Jain Lecture Foundation (1990), Toronto. Founded with the aim of promoting academic study of Jain religion. Sponsors annual Jain lectures at the University of Toronto, and it began its first lecture in 1990 delivered by Prof. Padmanabh S. Jaini of the University of California, Berkeley.
Jain Federation of North America (JAINA) founded in 1981 with Lalit Shah as the President. Dr. Manoj Dharamsi was elected after a few months, and he continued devising developmental plans upto 1985 when it had its first Bi-ennial Convention organized on a large scale in Detroit, MI. At this gathering, a quarterly magazine, Jain Digest was launched with S.A. Bhuvanendra Kumar of Mississauga, Canada as its editor, elected by Directors of JAINA. The first issue of Jain Digest came out in memory of the Air India bomb victims travelling from Toronto to Bombay in 1986. In 1989, it established JAINA Library in Lubbock, Texas and Toronto, Canada with funds provided by Dr. Premchand Gada of Lubbock, Texas. In the same year, Young Jains of America and Matrimonial Information Bureau were established under the leadership of Dr. Urmila Talsania of Chicago and Fakirchand Dalal of Baltimore repectively.
Bramhi Society U.S.A. and Canada (1989) It was founded by a group of twelve individuals from the U.S.A. and Canada to make a contribution in a contemporary environment to the study and promotion of Jaina reflection in the West. It has begun the publication of Jinamanjari, a bi-annual journal, with the first issue in October 1990. S.A. Bhuvanendra Kumar is the founder and editor.
In 1991 Bramhi Society organized Jain Youth Exchange in association with Young Jains of U.K., and the Jain Federation of North America.
These organizations and asscociations while are important indeed, the onus for the development of Jainism in the West falls squarely upon the Jaina laity who lives the life in mainstream America. The term laity in Jain sense has altogether different meaning then in the Christian parlance. In Jainism, it means those who follow the faith but have not entered monastic life being monks or nuns. The term laity in Jainism consists of an intimate symbiosis of four orders, namely male and female renunciates, women and men, and so in the American condition, the onus inevitably falls on the latter two to bring out Reality and Truth in terms of Jain precepts and practices. Similarly, it is largely their task to maintain symbiosis with the ascetics.
Ordinary renunciates in the West understand a very little of their importance in this symbiotic inter-relationship, as propagators of Jaina gospel and making history; howevr they will be the originators in the given situation.