IoJ’s delegation went from Dubai to Muscat in Oman on 7th november. IoJ Patron, Mr Bakul Mehta was hosting the delegation and had booked Muscat’s leading restaurant and conference centre – Mumtaz for a presentation of IoJ activities and JAINpedia project.The presentation was attended by about 35 leading members of the Muscat Jain community. Mr Bakul Mehta welcomed the delegates and introduced them along with their spouses and then invited IoJ Chairman Nemu Chandaria to give his address.
Nemu Chandaria outlined the origins and its history of 25 years. One of the major points he highlighted was: that all IoJ projects had been fully inclusive, there was full involvement or participation by all Jain firkas (sects).
He stated that the prime objective of the Institute was to raise the awareness of Jainism through art, culture and education. To achieve this objective IoJ had gained access at the highest levels in the UK institutions. Presentation of Jain Declaration on Nature was made to H R H Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace, this also gave Jain faith the recognition of being the 8th faith of the world.
The exhibition, Jain Art from India at Victoria & Albert Museum, one of the most prestigious venues in London had H M the Queen and the then President of India Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma at the joint Patrons in Chief – having two Heads of State for such projects is a very rare occurrence. The exhibition was attended by over 55,000 people.
Annual Ahimsa Day Celebrations for the past decade, supported by all three major political parties in the United Kingdom have created a wide ranging impact of Jain principals of Ahimsa and Anekantvad on the 650 members of the House of Commons, London,
Exhibitions and presentations at other prestigious British venues like British Library, Bodleian Library at Oxford University have given exposure to Jainism to a wide range of wider community.
Launching of the Catalog of Jain Manuscript Collection at British Library by the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in New Delhi and by and H R H Prince Philip, a visit to JAINpedia exhibition at the V&A Museum by H R H Prince Charles were major achievements.
Apart from widening the awareness of Jainism, IoJ also wanted to ensure that the invaluable rich heritage that we have inherited is preserved for our future generations – JAINpedia project has been conceived with this objective as the goal.
The project’s objective is to create a contextualised database of over 5000 selected pages from the various collections of JAIN manuscripts in the UK. This will not only allow lay people to see how the manuscripts look (for most there will never be an opportunity to see the real manuscripts) and also learn about the contents, the authors, place of creation and much more. A context based glossary makes reading of text easy and accessible. Over 300 supporting authoritative articles written by leading Jain scholars will enrich the content of the site.
IoJ has helped develop the national curriculum for teaching of Jainism in British Schools and has commenced publication of books for this purpose. A website learnjainism.org has been created for children’s activities and also for providing resource material for the teachers.
JAINpedia project funded by the UK Government’s Heritage Fund – the total cost of the project will exceed GBP £1 m.
He said that IoJ had taken Jainism to the highest levels in the country and now it wanted to achieve similar goals in other countries. Dubai and Muscat were the first countries to be visited by the Institute with this objective in mind.
Nemu Chandaria then invited Jaysukh Mehta, IoJ’s Events Director to do a presentation on JAINpedia project. The presentation started with visual highlighting of the key milestones of the past 25 years followed by the description of the JAINpedia project – first the various collections in Britain and their importance. IoJ’s major partners in the project were listed. After that actual pages from the JAINpedia website were displayed and their structure explained. The quality of the scanning was demonstrated with high level magnification of both the images and text on the actual manuscript images. The powerful glossary feature was demonstrated.
Jaysukh Mehta was followed by Mr Mahesh Gosrani, IoJ’s Finance Director who talked about the financial needs of the institute and an appeal to participate in IoJ activities.
Finally, Nemu Chandaria gave a brief round up on the evening and thanked the hosts for the opportunity for the presentation. He presented to the Muscat Jain Sangh : A set of Catalogues of Jain Manuscript Collection at the British Library, a copy of Tattvartha Sutra, copies of Learn Jainism and Jain Tales and a copy of Jain Declaration on Nature.
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