The guiding theme of this memoir is how events beyond the author's control played a significant part in shaping his career and opened unexpected pathways. Those of us who have had the good fortune to study with and in other ways benefit from Professor Jaini's wisdom and compassion can add to the linked chain of intersections, as without him Buddhist and Jain scholarship would not have been the same.
The reader of this engaging volume will be introduced to the vibrant world of Indian studies of Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism in the middle of the twentieth century, when scholars at universities and research institutions large and small in India were bringing to visibility the texts and traditions of classical and medieval South Asia. The reader will also be introduced to the equally vibrant scholarship in Europe and North America during the period that saw the rise of South Asian area studies as an academic field and of Buddhist studies as an integrated field that encompassed the study of the Buddhist traditions of all regions of Asia.
The reader will follow the path of Professor Jaini, from a young boy in a Digambar Jain family in Tulunadu with a school-teacher father and a well-known author mother, through his early school days at Jain ashrams at Karanja and Bahubali Hill in southern Maharashtra, his undergraduate college days in Nashik, and his M.A. studies in Ahmedabad. Along the way the reader will meet such greats of Indian scholarship as Bhujabali Shastri, Kshullaka (later Muni) Samantabhadra, Nathuram Premi, and Pandit Sukhlal Sanghavi. Pandit Sukhlal was a pioneer in comparative religious studies and at his urging Jaini learned Pali, and eventually became an expert on the Pali literature of Theravada Buddhism.
Book's Contents and Sample Pages
For privacy concerns, please view our Privacy Policy
Hindu (1743)
Philosophers (2389)
Aesthetics (332)
Comparative (70)
Dictionary (12)
Ethics (40)
Language (372)
Logic (72)
Mimamsa (56)
Nyaya (138)
Psychology (406)
Samkhya (62)
Shaivism (58)
Shankaracharya (240)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist