Mumbai (Maharashtra), January 18, 2012: Soon, there will be another contribution from the Jain community to the world. Like the prominent religious books, the Bible, Quran and Bhagavad Gita, the Aagam Sastra, the Jain community’s holy book will be available in English in another 15 years.
On Sunday, the community launched the project that will accomplish this under the guidance of the Jain monk Namra Muni Maharaj Saheb after a major pooja.
At present, the book is available in Gujarati and Hindi. “Though there are some translations available, they are in bits and pieces. The entire book is not available in English. This will be the first such attempt so that many more people can read and learn what is written in the holy book,” said Girish Shah, project director of the translation.
This will be the second book that will be a religious text contribution from the Jain religion to the world. It can be recalled here that the Samasti Tark Prakaran (known as ‘Treatise of Justice’) had being translated into Hindi by a monk in 30 years time. The text until then was available only in Ardh-Magadhi, a language that monks would learn and informally translate for their followers.
The Aagam Sastra has in all 32 Aagams and people involved say the translation will run into 36,000 pages. “We will be getting around 15 scholars from prominent varsities across India to work on them. They will be studying and translating the book page by page,” said Falguni Shah, who is part of the project. The project is being undertaken by Gyaan Daan Trust. – News Courtesy: DNA India