CfJS.FU.Berlin ►General Information

Department of History and Cultural Studies

Center for Jaina Studies (CfJS.FU)

The Center for Jaina Studies (CfJS.FU) at Freie Universität Berlin (FU) was founded in May 2011 at suggestion of  Prof. Klaus Bruhn, who held the chair of Indology at FU until 1991 and is one of the leading experts on Jainism in the western world.

So the fundamental idea for establishing a Center for Jaina Studies in Berlin was in particular to continue the tradition of German Jainology. Morever, the CfJS.FU is intended as a central institution in Germany where western academic Jainology cooperates with Jain organizations of research and education in India and North America to introduce Jainism to the German academics (Religious Studies, Cultural Anthropology etc.) and, moreover, to to the German public, where this religion is currently nearly unknown.

The Center for Jaina Studies at Freie Universität Berlin is administratively positioned at the Department of History and Cultural Studies but is situated at the South Asian Art History Center of Art History Department. Research and teaching will be focused on Jaina art, Jaina history and cultural history of Jainism as well as religious studies.

In matters of publication the Center for Jaina Studies cooperate with HereNow4u.net. In addition, the Center for Jaina Studies cooperates with the Museum of Asian Art, which is located in the immediate vicinity and preserves an excellent collection of Jaina art.

Philological Library of Freie Universität Berlin, including the section of Indology with a small collection of Jainological books

Jaina Studies in Berlin

Berlin has a great tradition in indological research and study. It was one of the first places in Europe, where a chair of Indology was established in the year 1818 and is associated with the great scholars of Indology like Max Müller, Albrecht Weber, Johann Georg Bühler and Walther Schubring. In Berlin the research of Jainism began by the work of Walther Schubring, who studied and indexed  the large  Jaina manuscript collection of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library). Later, Klaus Bruhn (a student of Ludwig Alsdorf, Walthe.r Schubrin.g and U. P. Shah) held the chair of Indology at Freie Universität Berlin. He is one of the leading experts on Jainism in the western world but is retired since many years.

About Freie Universität Berlin

Freie Universität Berlin, where the Center for Jaina Studies is situated, is the largest of the four universities of Berlin and is a leading institution of research and study. It is one of the German universities successful in all three funding lines in the federal and state Excellence Initiative, thereby receiving additional funding for its institutional future development strategy. Freie Universität Berlin can thus take its place as an international network university in the global competition among universities and has various offices abroad, among them also an office in New Delhi.