Notes On Modern Jainism: With Special Reference To The Sveta Mbara Digambara And Stha Nakava Si Sects

Jainism," says Monsieur A. Barth,"is one of the least known amongst those [religions] which have performed an important part in the past of India." Dr. Burgess believes that" research during the last half century has perhaps been less directed to the study of Jainism that to any other branch of Indian study,".

This ignorance is all the more surprising when one remembers that great interest which attaches to Jainism as " the only one of the almost primeval mendicant orders which survives in India at the present day', and the contempt so liberally poured forth is scarcely merited by religious community which has done much to foster the study of language and science, those members though numbering less than a million and a third are almost the most literature in India whose temples are famous amongst the glories of the east, whose worship far excels in purity of thought and ritual the Hinduism which surrounds it. (jacket)