The Chairman accompanied by two of the Directors visited Dubai and Oman in the UAE to appraise the Jain communities in the region about the activities of the Institute and in particular the JAINpedia project.
Dubai was the first port of call and the Jain Sangh there had hosted a dinner for eminent members of the community for the visting IOJ delegates. About 100 members attended the event. In his keynote address, the Chairman of the Institute, Nemu Chandaria explained the members with the IoJ’s activities including translating and digitizing of our sacred texts as well as manuscripts and told the members that we are duty bound to leave the legacy for the future generations. The Institute’s website www.jainpedia.com contains data and translations of over 5000 pages of material from ancient Jain scriptures. This is continously growing.
In order to create and widen the awareness of Jainism as a major faith of substance, the Institute has undertaken and is undertaking several major projects. One of them involved inviting leading Jain scholars from all over the world and community representatives to London. They jointly drafted a document titled Jain Declaration on Nature. It is noteworthy that every Jain sect had participated in drawing up this documents. (http://www.jainology.org/publications/jain-delaration-on-nature/). This document was presented by the International Jain delegation to H R H Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace in 1990. It was for the first time ever that Namokar Mantra was recited in Buckingham Palace.
Her Majesty the Queen and the then President of India Shree Shankar Dayal Sharma had graciously consented to be the Chief Patrons for the Jain Art from India exhibition at the prestigious V & A Museum in London. The exhibition was visited by over 55,000 people. Indian Prime Minister, at the time Shri Atal Vajpayi Bihari consented to be the Patron for the project to catalog the British Library Collection of manuscripts. The catalog was launched in 2006 at the Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi by the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and in 2007 at the Buckingham Palace by H R H Prince Philip.
Mr Chandaria then referred to the Ahimsa Day programs celebrated at the British House of Commons over the past 10 years. He also mentioned that the Institute had been awarding the Ahimsa Awards to persons whose life styles or activities had help bring about a change in the quality of life of the deprived people or helped raise the awareness of Jain philosophy. Awardees include personalities like Nelson Mandela and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Please click here to see the full text of his address.
An informative power point presentation was made by Jaysukh Mehta. It started with the major milestones in IoJ’s 25 year history. He described the concept of the JAINpedia project and its development to date. He requested the members of the Dubai Sangh to visit the JAINpedia web site at jainpedia.org and see the wealth of information held and see how they can encourage the younger members of their families to gain knowledge and have their questions about Jainism answered.
He talked about the special web sites (learnjainism.org) and books being created for providing educational material for the children and teaching resource material for the teachers.
He listed the major partners who are helping create this historical undertaking. The message he delivered was that the legacy left by Bhagwan Mahavir and the Acharyas and Saintly persons of past two and a half thousand years can be preserved with the current technology and it befalls on all Jains and their organisations world wide to support such activity.
Mahesh Gosrani then described his own responsibility of securing the financial support to keep the project going. He made a general appeal to the community for their participation in the project.
The visiting delegation was appreciative of the support extended by Dubai Jain Sangh, its President, Chandubhai Siroya and the committee members. Finally the members of the audience were thanked for their time and attendance at the presentation.
After the formal presentation was over there was a short session of meeting and questions. Following that everyone enjoyed the sumptuous buffet dinner laid out by the Jain Sangh Dubai.
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