Jainism in Japan explained

Group:	Japanese Jains
Pop:	5,000 families
Languages:	Japanese Languages Indian Languages
Religions:	Jainism

Jainism, unlike the closely related Buddhism, is a minority religion in Japan. At present, there are three Jain temples in Japan, with the Kobe Jain temple being the most famous one. Jainism is growing in Japan, more than 5,000 ethnic Japanese families in Japan have converted to Jainism.

History

Forty Japanese students were sponsored by the Government of India in the early 1950s to live and study in India. Some of them studied Navinaya in Varanasi and Gujarat, which led to new interest in the study of Jainism in Japan. One of the accomplishments was the first Japanese book by Minakata Kumagusu to simplify and translate the concepts of Jainism into Japanese for use by the common people in Japan.

See also

• Jainism in Canada
• Jainism in Europe
• Jainism in Hong Kong
• Jainism in Singapore
• Jainism in the United States

References

Source

• Book: Kesavapany . K. . Mani . A. . Ramasamy . P. . [{{Google books|39lJz_L4MdUC|page=271|keywords=|text=|plainurl=yes}} Rising India and Indian Communities in East Asia ]. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies . Japan . 2008 . 9789812307996 .
• Book: Wadhwa, Megha . [{{Google books|qd38DwAAQBAJ|pg=PT136|keywords=|text=|plainurl=yes}} Indian Migrants in Tokyo: A Study of Socio-Cultural, Religious, and Working Worlds ]. Routledge Studies on Asia in the World . . 2020 . 9781000207811 .
• News: Chhapia . Hemali . Thousands of Japanese making a smooth transition from Zen to Jain . 23 February 2020 . .
• Web site: Mehta . Manish . Jain studies . . March 2007 . 2 . 6 June 2021 . 13 June 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220613004726/https://www.soas.ac.uk/jainastudies/newsletter/file25135.pdf . dead .

Further reading

• A Japanese take on Jainism (in English)- kamit.jp