Misconceptions of Jainism; the Jains of North America (fwd)

[Amardeep Salgia]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 13:10:46 -0600 (CST)
From: Amardeep Salgia <asalgia at ux7.cso.uiuc.edu>
To: jain-list at wavefront.com 
Subject: Misconceptions of Jainism; the Jains of North America 



	In response to the recent request for assistance in conducting a 
research project on the Jain society of the Chicago area, I forwarded the 
following essay to the individual involved in the study.  The areas of 
interest were media coverage of the Jains and misconceptions of Jainism.

	The essay is an (unfinished and unedited) version of a 'foreword' to 
a compilation of academic and religious articles which I am working on with 
other members of the Jain group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign.  In it, I deal directly with the some of the many 
misconceptions of Jainism that the past couple of centuries of 
(non-Jain) writings and perceptions have spawned. 

	For the purpose of discussion and the promotion of seious educational 
endeavors of lasting consequence, I am submitting this 'foreword' to the list.
 

--
Amar Salgia
URH 224 Townsend
1010 West Illinois St.
Urbana, IL 61801
(217) 332-4068
asalgia at uiuc.edu


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				  FOREWORD


	As ordained by Lord Mahavira, the twenty-fourth and last 
Tirthankara of the present era, the Jain Sangh, or Order, consists of 
four types of human beings:  Sadhu, Sadhvi, Shravak, and Shravika 
(respectively, Jain Monks, Nuns, Male Householders and Female 
Householders).  For well over two and a half millenia, this Order has 
remained more or less intact on the Indian subcontinent, where every one 
of the Tirthankaras were born.  The Sadhus and Sadhvis, having renounced 
all ties to the material world, live in complete adhereance to the Five 
Mahavrats, or great vows.  For the Shravaks and Shravikas, those Jains 
who live in society and who are therefore bound by material means, the 
Sadhus and Sadhvis are thus the spiritual and moral guides, and the holy 
examples of the ideal life.  Metaphorically, the Sadhus and 
Sadhvis of the Jain Sangh are individually the embodiments of Jain 
philosophy, Right Conduct, detachment, and serenity.  Their presence is 
essential to the survival and sustainance of any Jain community.

	Most of the Jains of North America are either Indian immigrants 
or their children.  Since the former were born primarily into Western and 
Central Indian (Gujarati, Rajasthani, etc.) cultures, the religious 
traditions, beliefs and practices which today dominate the Jainism of the 
North American laity are marked by the influence of these cultures and 
practices.  This cultural influence pervades the various rituals (e.g., 
arti, gheeboli, pujas, etc.), customs, and annual observances of the 
Jains of North America.  Up to the present, the overriding direction 
undertaken by the Jain community has been one duplication of the lay 
Jain societies of Western and Central India, as evidenced through biases of 
language, ritual, and terminology.

	Among the second generation of Jains, there is a growing concern 
for the social and practical implications of Ahimsa.  There has also been 
a significant interest among Jain youth for the future survival of 
Jainism in North American society.  However, despite the efforts of a 
handful of dedicated individuals, there has been no significant emphasis 
on (1) the building of an educational infrastructure or (2) 
self-improvement through spirituality, philosophical learning, and the 
study of primary sources on Jainism (i.e., the Jain Scriptures).  
Instead, "Indianness" and Indian-American social concerns preoccupy the 
mind of the average Jain youth.  This is understandable since, more than 
ever before, Jains are themselves making an effort to blur the 
differences between their religion and that of the Hindus (and other 
religious groups), usually with a very liberal understanding of 
Anekantavad as justification.  Furthermore, Jains have been unwittingly 
attacking their own religion and way of life through their acceptance and 
regurgitation of the uninformed judgements and portrayals of non-Jain 
scholars, which are dealt with below.  And, without the presence of Jain 
Sadhus and Sadhvis, who are uncompromising in living their holy vows, and 
who are not lax in the self-control and and detachment necessary for 
Final Liberation, the Jain society of North America - and of all the 
world - is, from an anthropological point of view, in a rather precarious 
position.

	Apart from the generational gaps, apathy, and ignorance that 
partially characterize the Jain community of North America, the youth 
must contend with things more threatening to the long-term survival and 
sustainance of the Jain community and way of life.  An exhaustive 
exposition of these socio-religous factors, which seem to be inherent to 
being a religious minority in the West, ought to be left to Jain 
scholarship and anthopological investigation.  One of them, however, was 
explained above and is the primary inspiration for compiling this book.  

	Ever since the modern Western discovery of the Jains, Jainism's 
philosophy, spirituality, and moral doctrines has been subject to several 
well-circulated distortions and belittling portrayals.  These are 
manifest in a number of contentions held by the non-Jain scholarly 
community which are enumerated below.  Practically no effort has been 
made on the part of the world Jain community to educate itself regarding 
its own history and unique existence as a social entity.  Until the 
present, the world Jain community, including that of North America,  has 
been quite tolerant and accepting of such misguided evaluations of the 
Jain religion.  Therein lies one threat to to the long-term survival and 
sustainance of the Jain community and way of life; for generations can 
pass with an ever-decreasing sense of social and religious identity, and 
an ever-increasing tendency towards dissolution into the larger society.  
These trends, among others, are already running rampant among the Jain 
communities of India.  A vital part of the solution to their propogation is 
whole-hearted investment in and promotion of Jain scholarship, which this 
book is intended to help inspire in its readers.  


The Prevailing Contentions.

	From non-Jain academic and religious circles, a number of 
prevailing contentions and generalizations regarding the origins, 
sociology, philosophy, personages, and actual practice of Jainism do not, 
to varying degrees, correspond to reality.  They conflict with the 
well-preserved Jain - and even Hindu - histories, philosophies, and 
traditions, as well as the socio-religious experience of the Jains 
themselves (which may be demonstrated by testimony).  These assertions 
can be found written on the pages of most of the acclaimed works on 
Jainism authored by non-Jains since the late nineteenth century.  Though 
disagreement among scholars is natural and often beneficial, the 
propounders of these postulates have effectively ignored the voluminous 
bodies of evidence to their contrary.  The major views are the following (and 
can be found, almost verbatim, in most encyclopedias):

	1.  "Jainism is an offshoot of Brahmanism.  Jain philosophy developed 
	out of the Samkhya and Vedanta schools of Hindu philosophy, and the 
	conduct and way of life of the Jain ascetics was derived from that of 	
	the Hindu Brahmins."

	2.  "Mahavira was the founder of Jainism.  He was greatly influenced 
	by the Upanishadic texts and  the atmosphere of disdain towards the 
	Brahmins, in which he grew up.  Under such influences, he adopted the 
	doctrine of 'non-injury' [Ahimsa]."

	3.  "Jainism is a heterodox 'sect' which arose with Buddhism and the 
	Ajivika sect as a protest against Vedic ritualism and the caste 
	system.  Jainism, like its contemporary sect Buddhism, denies the 
	authority of the Vedas and the Brahmanic social heirarchy.  It was 
	founded in the sixth century, B.C. as a manifestation of the 
	'intellectual ferment' of the world during that time."

	4.  "Jainism is a religion of the warrior caste [the Kshattriyas], 
	and is the product of social tension that [supposedly] developed 
	between the warrior caste and the priestly caste [the Brahmins] of 
	ancient India."

	5.  "The Jain reverance for life has an animistic basis.  Jain 
	asceticism, like all forms of Indian asceticism, came about as a result 
	of the environmental instability of the Indian subcontinent."

	6. "The Jains are primarily merchants, bankers, and moneylenders, and 
	form a small subcaste within the larger Hindu society."

	7.  "Jainism is atheistic.  It negates the value of human existence."

	8.  "Jainism is a religion of extreme asceticism.  It advocates 
	committing suicide by starving oneself to death, and self-torture, as 
	the holiest acts a Jain can perform."
 
 	Some of these contentions were first enunciated by Western 
scholars who were (and, to a lesser extent, still are) accustomed to 
understanding civilizations in terms of empires, ethnic and social 
conflicts, and strictly dateable personages and events.  Therefore, their 
treatment of India's history has, until relativly recently, been ridden with 
over-generalizations and arbitrary quantizations of artificially 
construed historical periods.  (For example, the orientalist Max Muller 
produced the date of 1500 B.C. as the time of the composition of the first 
Vedic hymns by first assuming that the Vedas were completed by 500 B.C., the 
time of Gautama Buddha; then, considering the five parts of the Vedic 
literatures - the Brahmanas, Samhitas, etc. - he arbitrarily assigned exactly 
200 years to each  of the five.  Then, making another assumption that the 
composition of these parts were confined to contiguous time periods,  he 
added 500 + 5[200] = 1500 B.C. to obtain his dating of the Vedas.  To 
this very day, Western scholars have anchored their scheme of Indias 
religious and cultural history around the same date of 1500 B.C.; and 
with linguistic arguments, the Sanskrit language has come to be 
regarded as having began at that time.  Dating methods such as these, to 
which the Jain tradition has also been subjected, are riddled with biases and 
are therefore deplorable examples of counterproductive scholarship.)  Yet, 
such contentions regarding Jainism have gone relatively unchallenged by the 
scholarly community at large.  Each of them, however, can be found to be 
either inaccurate distortions or, at best, premature conclusions.


Two General Approaches.

	Two general approaches to the study of Jainism and Jain society 
appear have been undertaken by non-Jain scholars.  To Western scholars, 
the Jains have generally been seen as an oddity in their perceived 
framework of Indian civilization.  The division between the monk/nuns and the 
laity, as well as the great fusion of theory and practice exemplified by the 
conduct of the monastic and lay communities, are ceaselessly characterized by 
some as having been born of primitive fears and taboos.  Jain philosophy and 
cosmology, while incredibly accurate and  estimable in the context of 
modern scientific thought, have received scant attention from Western 
Indologists.   The philosophically based concepts of Ahimsa and 
Anekantavad, two central and unique components of Jain philosophy and conduct, 
are rarely given their due treatment.
   
	Rather, elements of the Jain world-view are excised from their 
orderly contexts, stripped of their practical implications to the life of 
the spiritual aspirant, and explained away with more denigrating 
characatures:  "extreme asceticism", "hero-worship", "self-denial", 
"world-negation", etc., all somehow rooted in environmental 
impredictability.  And some, like the explanation for dharma and adharma 
(the non-material media of motion and rest in Jain cosmology) as being 
philosophical analogues of a kind of primitive Indian superstition of 
good and bad "airs", are quite absurd.   Other products of this approach 
are shown in contentions 4 through 8 in the above listing.  In short, 
owing to the fact that the philosophy, social structure, and way of life 
for which Jainism has stood, as a whole, simply do not fit into the 
established Western scheme of Indology, the Jain philosophy, 
spirituality, and moral doctrines are, in the mind of many an Indologist, 
either non-entities, or, primitive anomalies born of unusual environmental 
circumstances.

	The other approach places emphasis on evaluating Jainism's origins 
and development before and during the lifetime of Mahavira.   Regarding 
the Jain tradition, the central endeavor of many non-Jain scholars of 
Indian origin has been to trace its philosophy and doctrines back to 
Indian intellectual movements and Brahmanic sources.  The resulting 
contentions appear in 1 through 4, above.  While scholars taking this 
approach do tend to enter their treatment of Jainism with a mindset of high 
estimation of Jain philosophy, spirituality, and moral doctrines, they 
apparently encounter difficulty in perceiving in them any manner of 
originality.  Though they may applaud  Mahavira and the Jains as important 
players in the intellectual heritage of the subcontinent, they nevertheless 
style them as uplifted dissenters or disgruntled Hindus, not as members of an 
independent religious and cultural tradition (which, as earlier 
mentioned, is a view inconsistent with the Brahmanic literature).  The  
chauvinistic undertones of such contentions may also contribute to 
grounds for their dismissal.



	These two trends in non-Jain pursuits in the study of the Jains and 
Jainism must be thoroughly understood by the lay Jain community in order 
for their effects on the Jains' perceptions of themselves to be apparent.
This endeavor of Jain scholarship needs to be directed towards three salient 
goals:  understanding Jain philosophy and the Jain way of life for what they 
truly are, and in the manner in which they were actually meant to be 
understood; examining how common perceptions of Jainism and the Jains have 
come to deviate so conspicuously from the actual Jainism of theory and 
practice; and making final evaluations of the resulting conclusions in order 
to fascilitate the easy affecting of change.




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On Mon, 5 Feb 1996, Raphael Carter wrote:

> Forwarded message:
> Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 22:36:57 -0600
> To: jain-list at wavefront.com
> From: cno690 at casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Carmen Nobel)
> 
> I'm a journalism graduate student at Northwestern. I'm in a religion
> reporting class this quarter, and we're studying how and if the media in
> Chicago cover different religions. I've been assigned to research and cover
> Jainism in the Chicago area. If anyone knows of any Jain-related groups or
> individuals in the Chicago area and can share that information with me, I
> will be grateful. Also, I'm interested in common misconceptions about
> Jainism and pressing issues that you might want the media to cover. (The
> Pizza Hut issue, for example.)
> 
> I'll appreciate any input.
> 
> Thanks very much.
> 
> --
> Carmen D. Nobel
> Northwestern University