OSHWAL ‘MELA’
Sunday 24th July, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, UK.
The Oshwal Association of the UK organised a large ‘mela’ on Sunday, with a funfair, trade stalls, vegan food and games galore, it was an eventful day out for all who attended.
The Institute of Jainology (IoJ) arranged to have their own stall at the event, in order to showcase its recent work, including the extensive JAINpedia project. IOJ publications, the ‘Tattvartha Sutra – That Which Is’, and the 2 books in the Learn Jainism series, Discover Jainism and Jain Tales, were a hit. Children loving the new ‘Jain Tales’ and parents wanting to learn more about Jainism through the ‘Tattvartha Sutra’.
Gates opened at 11.30am and closed at 8.00pm; open to the public, the event was attended mainly by Oshwal community members from across the country, but also by several other communities and religions. The weather held up and the day turned out to be very fruitful for the charity and much fun for the team.
An estimated 5000 people attended the event, with many coming in to see us at the colourful JAINpedia stall. Raising awareness of the commendable project was one of our objectives, and achieved substantially, with hundreds signing up for the future JAINpedia e-newsletter.
The JAINpedia team, as always stood out in their orange t-shirts, and talked to people about the project objectives, achieved milestones and showed people screenshots of the upcoming, comprehensive and well – designed JAINpedia website. All were impressed at how much would be viewable on the site from digitized manuscripts zoom able to the minutest details, to ample information about Jainism through related articles, written by scholars and experts from around the world.
Further to this, young university students were encouraged to spend some time during their holidays, volunteering for JAINpedia events and website work; several signing up just to know more about their own culture.
From the achieved milestones, the most asked about was the visit by HRH, The Prince of Wales, to the JAINpedia display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in November 2010. The Royal Family’s attention to the Institute of Jainology and its work began in 1990, when the IoJ had the Jain Declaration on Nature published and presented to HRH Prince Philip at Buckingham Palace in presence of Jain leadership from many countries.
The seed of JAINpedia was sown with the launch of the British Library Manuscripts catalogue at Buckingham Palace in London, which was attended by 300 people on 15th May, 2007, in the graceful presence of HRH Duke of Edinburgh.
The challenge of access to Jain manuscripts to a wide and diverse audience was now raised. Also, realizing physical contact could be virtually impossible for these rare and fragile manuscripts, and that they were in languages not read in, for centuries, the JAINpedia project was rightly conceived, and aptly brings Jainism into the 21st Century.
The Institute of Jainology looks forward to bring this multimedia site into public view in the near future.