User talk:Alastair Haines/Testbench

Dundas

Dundas is an excellent scholar in Sanskrit and Prakrit. We can also follow him doctrinically. I have personally met when he came to Mumbai and had a good chat with him. But I would not trust him totally on historical dating. He is very conservative and tends to date everything later (to be on safer side maybe). "The Jains" is an excellent book, but I am not happy with the historical dating of various events as I have found him ultra conservative and sometimes without any rhyme or reason.--Anish (talk) 06:17, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for this personal testimony. Yes, you raise three points:

1. Dundas is first and foremost a Sanskrit and Prakrit scholar—this is above criticism, except by other published Sanskritists;
2. he is a fair (neutral) reporter of Jain doctrine—this is answerable to Jaina experts, but they acknowledge that he presents their views accurately;
3. he is conservative (or sceptical) with regard to historical dating—this is part of complicated questions discussed in an interdisciplinary forum of scholars: archeologists, cultural anthropologists, historians, linguists, Indologists, theologians and others.

In issue one, the professional Sanskrit scholarly community has the final say. In issue two, Jaina scholars have the final say. In issue three, no one really has the final say, several POVs must be expressed to have an NPOV, unless there is essentially a consensus, which means everyone has pretty much the same opinion.

I can accept your testimony, and I think the consequence at Wiki is that multiple sources regarding dating should be documented.

I have a slight quibble with some "political correctness" in Dundas' view of Jainism, but this is unlikely ever to be relevant, unless some unhelpful editor comes along to push an agenda with an article like Gender in Jainism. I think that a rather unlikely possibility.

I've been looking at what's available at Sydney University, and found some good Indian sources: another Encyclopedia of Jainism published by Anmol, and a fascinating and charming little book by Brahmchari Sital Prashad, called A Comparative Study of Jainism and Buddhism (Sri Satguru Publications, 1995 [1932]), written from the Jain perspective. Prashad's views Buddhism as a "popularisation" (my summary) of Jainism, and essentially consistant with it. There are many quotations from Pali and Prakrit scriptures. I am inclined to agree, but I am far from an expert on either faith. There is a huge quantity of literature to read.

It would appear that there are some very high quality current western Indologists who are themselves sceptical of earlier western over-simplification and scepticism regarding the history of Indic literature. There may be some excellent books published in the next few decades. Your work here at Wiki may well be part of assisting ordinary westerners to have a better grasp of issues that are still a matter of active research. I am beginning to find this rather exciting. Thanks for your perseverence. Alastair Haines (talk) 08:04, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I think Gender and Jainism would be an interesting article. A lot of doctrinal material is available on this issue as one of the main differences for split in Jainism was the issue of liberation for women. Svetamberas believed that women can achieve liberation, whicle Digambaras believed that women need to take rebirth in male form to achieve salvation. In fact Padmanabh Jaini has written a great book on this debate Gender and Salvation: Jaina Debates on the Spiritual Liberation of Women. By the way, what political correctness of dundas are you mentioning? I seem to have missed something.--Anish (talk) 05:43, 16 November 2009 (UTC)