World of Conquerors

Author(s): Natubhai Shah
Publisher: Natubhai Shah

Page 92

aacaaryaa. Aacaaryaa Chandana is a serious scholar and a dynamic personality, is an accomplished public speaker and has travelled abroad, and has given her support to the creation of a museum at the Leicester Jain Centre. Her disciple Saadhvi Shilapi, who is in London for her doctoral studies, has been very helpful to the children and young people undertaking a Jain education.
This century has seen advances in the status and education of Jain women in many fields. There are almost two and a half times as many Jain nuns as monks, many are excellent scholars, speakers and leaders. In temples and upashrayas, women's attendance outnumbers that of men. Women now receive a higher education and professional training, and are found practically in all the professions, and in spite of the complexities of modern life, they have retained traditional Jain values within the family and the community.
Despite the above encouraging trends, all is not as Jains would wish: Jain culture is hardly taught in Indian schools, children learn their faith through paathasaalas and in the family, and once they go to secondary school, they are lost to the wider culture and complexities of life. If Jains wish to preserve their culture through future generations, they will have to provide an infrastructure for modern standards of education and recreation for children and young people.
Jain institutions flourished in the past and rarely faced financial problems as, like many religions, they devised schemes to ensure financial support for key institutions by asking members to donate a proportion of their income. Jain scriptures require the laity to offer a certain percentage, between 6 and 33 percent, of their income for community welfare and other charitable purposes, and there are moves in some quarters to revive this tradition.
Of the two Jain sects the Svetambars are mainly found in Gujarat, Eastern Rajasthan, Punjab, Delhi and Bombay, and the Digambars are scattered across Western Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and South India. The indigenous Jains of South India are farmers and artisans; their religious and social life is controlled by bhattarakas and they do not have any interaction with north Indian Digambars. The indigenous Saraaka Jains of Bihar and Orissa are poor; they follow Parsvanatha's teachings, and have no social relations with the affluent Svetambar or Digambar Jains.
Jains have an ill-founded fear of losing their identity in the vast ocean of the Hindu community. Their relations with Hindus are good; Mahatma Gandhi promoted ahimsaa and wove it into the fabric of the modern Indian society. They can promote their values in close co-operation with Hindus and other major faiths making use of modern technology.
Jains in the twentieth century will have to keep abreast of the changing situation of society. They are a wealthy community; they can provide necessary infrastructure and adapt to the modern methods for promotion of the Jain values to make their future rosy.
92