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9th Jaina Studies Workshop at SOAS
London University's School of Oriental & African Studies completed another successful Jaina Studies Workshop on Wednesday 21st March 2007.
The workshop was organised by the Initiative for the European Network for Jaina Studies: Dr Peter Flügel, Centre of Jaina Studies SOAS, Prof Olle Qvarnström, Centre of Theology and Religious Studies University of Lund, and Dr Julia Hegewald, South Asia Institute University of Heidelberg.
Sponsorship was received by the Swedish Research Council (SRC), the Emmy Noether Programme of the Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft (DFG), and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
The workshop was held as previous years in the Brunei Gallery of the School.
Samani Prasannaprajna and Samani Sambhogaprajna started the proceedings of the workshop with the recitation of Navokar mantra and Manglit. This was followed by the welcoming addresses by the Director of SOAS, Prof Paul Webley and Bhattaraka Charukritiji of Mudabidri.
Mr Nirmal Sethia was called forward to present the prizes to two winners of the Annual Jain Essay competition for the year 2005 - 2006.
The prize winners were Miss Mankiran Riyait for Undergraduate category and Miss Zipporah Weisberg for the Postgraduate category - a £500 cash prize was awarded to each.
Institute of Jainology arranges the competition annually under two categories, under graduate and post graduate. Cash prize of £500 is offered to the winner in each category. N Sethia Foundation will be sponsoring the competition through the Institute for the next five years. Details of the competition are available from the School.
The workshop included talks from a variety of Jain scholars visiting the UK specially for the workshop from Germany, Norway, USA, Japan, India supported by UK scholars.
The workshop was well attended by both the scholars from UK Universities and the local Jain Community.
Dr Harshad Sanghrajka, Hon Secretary of the Institute of Jainology came to the podium to congratulate Dr Peter Flügel his colleagues for organising such an excellent workshop with a wide range of subjects offering something for everyone.