The struggle for the legal recognition of the Jain community in India as a religious minority from 1992 onwards has generated a renewed interest in Jaina law and an intense debate on the question of Jain identity in the context of the wider question of the interface between religion, society, law and politics in contemporary South Asia. This book analyses contemporary Jain identity and legal status in India.

Chapters in this book, written experts on the subject, address the following issues: How do Jains themselves define their identity and customs privately and collectively in...

There is a growing recognition that scholarship on Indian religions has been hampered by the lack of knowledge of Jain sources. This book analyses different aspects of the extensive, more than two thousand years long tradition of Jaina narrative literature composed in Prakrit, Sanskrit and vernacular languages.

Written by experts specialising in the study of Jaina narrative literature, this unique book offers an interdisciplinary approach. It presents interesting juxtapositions of narrative paradigms with Jaina ritual culture in history and the contemporary world as well as in Buddhism...