--- (Population figures)

[Yashwant Malaiya]

<Francois.Obrist at BCU.UNIL.CH> wrote:

>1991 Census of India :
>
>Jains : 3,352,706 = 0.40%

I think that should be a good estimate of the Jain population in
India, (although I am aware of some scholars questioning the
accuracy of the count).

The Jain growth rate had dropped quite significantly during
1981-91 (from 2.31% in prior decade) to 0.46%. It is likely
that the 2001 population is not much higher.

The same should be true for other affluent, educated communites
in India that are very urban.

>En fait environ  5 millions d'adherents selon le site suivant :
>http://www.adherents.com/adh_branches.html#Jainism

I'm sure that the table "Major Branches of Jainism" is quite
inaccurate.

In 1914 AD, a private enumeration (Bharatavarshiya Digambara Jain
Directory, a 7 year effort) of Digambaras gave the number 450,584.
Assuming an  undercount of about 10-15%, they were about 41-43% of
the Jain  population. I have a copy.

There is a fairly reliable way for estimating the number of Jains
in North America. A look at the past Jain Directories of North
America suggests that a certain fraction of all Jains have the
last name “Jain”.  Based on the most recent update of the Directory,
this fraction is 7.6%. If we can count all those with last name Jain,
we can get an estimate of the Jain population.

a. The 1990 USA census reports that there were 815,447 Indians and
0.6% (i.e. about 4893) had the last name Jain. This would give about
64,400 Jains in 1990.

b. Since 1990, the number of Indians and the number of Jains has
gone up significantly. All individuals with a listed phone number
(the information is about a year old) can be looked up on some of
the web directories. In 1999, I found 2039 families/individuals with
last  name "Jain" listed. Since  there are about 3.12 members per
family,  that gives 85,600 Jains  in USA in 1999. I believe this
is a fairly accurate estimate; the  margin of error should not be
more than a  few percent.

I would add at least another 10-15% to the 1999 estimate to account
for recent arrival of software professionals in North America.

Yashwant