Padmanabh Jaini

Padmanabh Jaini
Born	Nellikar, Karnataka
Residence	Berkeley, California
Nationality	Indian

Padmanabh Shrivarma Jaini is an Indian born scholar of Jainism and Buddhism, currently living in Berkeley, California, United States. He is from a Digambar Jain family; however he is equally familiar with both the Digambara and Svetambara forms of Jainism. He has taught at the Banaras Hindu University, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and at the University of California at Berkeley, from which he retired in 1994. Professor Jaini is the author of several books and papers. His best known work is The Jaina Path of Purification (1979). Some of his major articles have been published under these titles: The Collected Papers on Jaina Studies (2000) and Collected Papers on Buddhist Studies (2001).

Jaini was born to a Digambar Jain family residing in Nellikar, a small town near Moodabidri, Karnataka, India. His father had abandoned his title of Shetty and adopted the name of Jaini—after the famous Jain scholar, Jugmandar Lal Jaini (1881-1927)—responding to calls within the community to change their names to foster a greater sense of Jain identity. After completing his elementary education, he was sent to Digambara Jain Gurukul, a boarding school in Vidharbha, Maharashtra. It was run on traditional Jain principles and here he came in contact with Jain scholars of his time like – Pandit Nathuram Premi, Dr. Hiralal Jain, Dr. A.N. Upadhye.

After completing his secondary education here, he went to Arts College at Nashik where he took the degree of BA hons in 1947 in Sanskrit and Prakrit. During this time he supported himself by taking a job as a superintendent of a Jain Svetambara Hostel and thus coming in contact with the Svetambara community for the first time.

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