Invitation to Attend ISSJS 2009

The fall season is here with students going back to universities and colleges. We have been busy in reviewing the ISSJS2008 and preparing for ISSJS2009. We are glad to inform you that the governing council of ISSJS has introduced a number of initiatives to make ISSJS2009 more academically rewarding and experiential program.

We are attaching the ANNOUNCEMENT folder inviting applications for ISSJS2009. Kindly print and post on the notice boards of your colleges and universities and also publicize this unique program to prospective students and scholars. We encourage you to nominate and to pass this information to other scholars interested in attending ISSJS 2009. For details please visit www.jainstudies.org as well as to download the application form. The last date for applying is Feb 14th 2009. So please hurry.

Prof P.S. Jaini from University of California, Berkley to teach in ISSJS 2009  

We are glad and honored to inform you that Prof P.S. Jain, the eminent Jain scholar in USA and Professor emeritus at University of California at Berkley, will be with ISSJS from June 2nd till June 12th 2009. He will be teaching a three days module in Delhi and deliver a number of seminars at Delhi and Jaipur for the academic community. He will also visit with us the pilgrimage to central Indian pilgrim points at Agra, Gwalior and Deogarh.  The attending scholars will greatly benefit from his scholarship in Jain and Buddhist studies. He is the author of several books and papers including the most famous book ‘Jain path of purification’.

SJS Governing council meets in London:

The governing council of ISJS is meeting in London from Oct 10th to 12th 2008. This is annual retreat where the governing council members are involved in group discussions and approve the next year’s plans and budgets. We are trying to encourage our scholars from UK and Europe to participate in ISSJS 2009 also. A reception cum introductory function is organized at Oshwal Jain Center of London on Oct 11th morning and at JVB Center in the evening of October 11. Many respected Jain community leaders and Academicians have been invited to these meetings.

Dr. Shugan C. Jain delivered a lecture in Bangalore

Dr. Shugan Jain presented a paper on Aspect of social engagements by Jains in The Fifth National Seminar on Faith based organizations and their social works/responses, organized by The Institute of Social Studies and Indira Gandhi National Open University from August 28th-31s 2008 at Bangalore. Besides presenting the paper, he also was one of the three resource persons to interact and respond with the attending scholars on the subject. More than 300 university scholars and professors engaged in social studies and works participated in this conference. As a result of this participation, Dr. Jain has been requested to present similar and related papers on a number of interfaith and academic conferences and meetings.  

ISJS to organize one month program on Jain Academic studies in Bangkok in April 2009

We are indeed very happy to inform you that in principle arrangements have been made to have a month long summer school on Jain studies at a university in Bangkok in April 2009. Our representative there, Mr. Pramod Jain had been working very hard to see this happen. He had been nominating two scholars every year in last three years to our summer schools. Details will be announced soon.

JAIN SCHOLARS DATA BASE READY

Mr. Yogendra Jain chairman Long range planning JAINA and ISJS commissioned Mr. Bobby Tarumi a student of Winward Community College Hawaii under the able guidance of Ms. Sarah Hadmack (an ISJS Academic council member, an alumni and teacher at the college) to set up a global database of Jain scholars. They have both completed the project and the same is available at http//www.JainLink.org/?page=JainScholarsDatabase. We sincerely thank both of them for their untiring effort to design and start this database. We request all of you to please visit the database and update details of known Jain scholars (or your own if you are a Jain scholar) to make this database up to date.