Dr. Samani Mangal Pragya
Western world was introduced to Jainism nearly two centuries back, when Major Colin Mackenzie published an article on Description of Jainas published in three volumes of a research magazine by the name 'Asiatic Researches' in 1807. After this, H. Th. Colebrook expressed some of his views regarding Jainism. In 1827, H. H. Wilson published a critical analysis on Colebrook's essay and in the same year Francklin published a research article on Jain and Buddhist concept. H.H. Wilson published the description of several Jain manuscripts. With these efforts in the beginning, Weber's in-depth research on Bhagavatī in German language is worth noticing.
Weber
There is a great contribution of Allbrecht Weber (1825-1901) in introducing the Jain literature to the western world. He accomplished significant work on Jain literature. His famous research article is by the name Ueber die heiligen schriften der Jaina ('on the Holy Scriptures of the Jains'), in which he has written analytically on Śvetāmbara Jain āgamas. In the fifth volume of Catalogue of the Manuscripts of the Royal Prussian Library, he has described in detail about the hand written manuscripts. He has also published a detailed essay on Bhagavatī Sūtra. Its title is ueberein fragment der Bhagavati, ein Beitrag Zur Kenntnis der heiligen sprache und Literatur der Jaina, (On a fragment of the Bhagavatī, a contribution to the knowledge of the holy languages and literature of the Jains).
E. Leumann
Leuman has conducted comparative study on some of the parables or stories found in Jain āgamas from the point of view of philology. He opined that Jain stories stand very important for studying Indian cultural history. He wrote a book by name Buddha and Mahavira in 1922.
Schubring
Walter Schubring (1881-1969) has given great contribution in the development of Jainism. He was awarded with Ph.D. degree, on his dissertation by name Das Kalpasūtra, die alte 'Sammlung Jinistischer Moenchsvor Schriyen' (Kalpasūtra: Ancient collection of Rules for Jain monks), which was published by Indic, Leipzig in 1905. Mr. Burgess translated it in English. He did not translate the main text. That translated book was published by Indian antiquary in 1910. The writings of Schubring like Worte Mahaviras Kritishce Veberset Ziengan, ans dem kanon der Jain (Words of Mahavira, critical translation from the Jain canon) was published in Gottingen in 1926. It contains some important quotings from significant āgama texts.
Mr. Schubring has written a detailed monograph on Jain doctrine by name 'Die Lehre der Jainas nach alten quellen dargestellt, which expresses his in-depth knowledge in the subject. Encyclopaedia of Indo-Aryan Research was published by Liepzig in 1934. W. Beurlen has translated this important text into English, which was published by name 'the Doctrines of the Jains' at Delhi, in 1962.
Another book series by name 'Die Religionen der Voelkar' is published by Stuttgart in 36 volumes is a comprehensive study of world religions. In this series, 13th volume possessed an article published by the name of 'Jainism' written by Schubring. Mr A. Sen translated that into English. That translated version was published by Calcutta Sanskrit College Research Series no. LII. Hence Schubring has done a great service in the spreading of Jain philosophy through his novel writings.
Deleu
Jozef Deleu worked on Bhagavatī Sūtra, which was published by 'De Tempel hof 37, Brugge (Belgie)' in 1970. As already mentioned, in the western world, the first and foremost work on Bhagavatī was done by Weber. After that Schubring did some work. But after Weber, it was only Deleu who brought out an independent work on Bhagavatī. After dealing with many important topics of Bhagavatī analytically, he concentrated on the composition of Bhagavatī and undertook a detailed discussion. He himself wrote in his preface that 'The present work intends to give a fairly complete analysis of the viyāhapaṇṇatti; moreover, in the introduction I have tried to answer at least some of the complicated questions regarding its composition.'
Scholar Deleu has given multiple indexes and appendices at the end of the text, which enhanced its value.
The book 'German Indologists' remained the source for all the above discussions.
