Abhishek Jain

University of Pittsburgh, Asian Studies Center, Post-Doc

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Abhishek Jain (Ph.D., Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, 2021) is currently a postdoc research fellow at the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to joining the University of Pittsburgh, Abhishek Jain taught Indian religion, Jaina Yoga, Comparative Religion, and Sanskrit at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and was a Gonda Postdoctoral Fellow at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He holds an MA and MPhil in Sanskrit Studies with a special focus on Jain philosophy and a PhD in Indian Literary Studies with a special focus on historical discourse in Jain tradition. The major focus of his research is on classical and modern South Asian languages and literature, literary theory, theory of history, Jain Yoga, philosophy, and translation theory.

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Papers by Abhishek Jain

2024 PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH PAPER: Jain Prabandhas as Historical Discourse

Vishveshvarananda Indological Journal: An International Peer-Reviewed Refereed Research Journal, 2024

This paper argues for Jain Prabandha literature as it is a discourse that could be accounted for ... more This paper argues for Jain Prabandha literature as it is a discourse that could be accounted for articulating the past of medieval South Asia. The article first shows instances wherein several 19th-and 20th-century scholars of South Asian Studies neglected Jain Prabandha for considering as historiography. The article then delves into Hayden White's notion of cultural specificity in which the Jain Prabandha literature by definition does not meet the general idea of historical writings in the modern academic discipline, as has been seen, there is cause to argue that taking cultural contexts into account the Prabandha corpus itself may be considered an artifact of sorts and qualifies as historical evidence of imagination about medieval South Asia.

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2023 JAINA STUDIES NEWSLETTER: Jain Prabandha as Historical Discourse

Jaina Studies: Newsletter of the Centre of Jains Studies, 2023

The article raises a question about the research of Jain Prabandha Corpus. The Jain Prabandha is ... more The article raises a question about the research of Jain Prabandha Corpus. The Jain Prabandha is a late medieval literary genre that features accounts of noted figures, such as monks, poets, kings, and lay people. Another focus is on histories of pilgrimage sites, written and preserved by Jain authors. Written in colloquial Sanskrit and Prakrit, these works were composed from the 12th to 16th centuries.

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2023 PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLE: Jane Come with Me to India: The Narrative Transformation of Janeeyreness in the Indian Reception of Jane Eyre

by Ulrich Timme Kragh and Abhishek Jain

Prismatic Jane Eyre: Close-Reading a World Novel Across Languages, 2023

The article discusses the Indian reception of the English nineteenth-century novel "Jane Eyre" by... more The article discusses the Indian reception of the English nineteenth-century novel "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë. It draws out the Indian motif from within the novel itself and gives a new narratological analysis of the novel based on analytic principles from classical Indian dramaturgy. It then presents the Indian appropriations in the form of books and films based on the English novel and compares these to the academic reception that the novel has had in English departments at Indian universities. Next, it turns to a history of translation in India and presents the translations of the novel into Indian languages, many of which are abridged translations. In order to encompass these forms of writing under the general term "translation," the authors propose a new definition for translation by drawing on classical Indian philosophical notions of substance (dravya), transformation (parinama), and perspective (naya). Finally, the article provides a synoptic comparison of selected passages from the Hindi, Kannada, and Gujarati translations of Jane Eyre, and ends by proposing a way to distinguish between the three terms "literal translation," "abridged translation," and "adaptation" based on the Indian literary concept of dipaka, "epiphany." The article appeared as part of the collaborative volume "Prismatic Jane Eyre: Close-Reading a World Novel Across Languages," edited by Matthew Reynolds et al. The whole volume is available for free in open access at https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0319

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2019 PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLE: A Preliminary Study on the Indian Grammar Manuscripts of the Āmer Śāstrabhaṇḍār in Jaipur

by Ulrich Timme Kragh and Abhishek Jain

Przegląd Orientalistyczny, 2019

The study of language and grammar is one of the most fundamental parts of an education, and India... more The study of language and grammar is one of the most fundamental parts of an education, and India has a long and sophisticated tradition of language and grammar teaching (vyākaraṇa) that is as old as the Indian scripts and writing themselves. Starting around the fourth century BCE with the grammatical treatises by Pāṇini and his commentators, the Indian grammarian tradition developed through several distinct schools of grammar and language study. A historical study of these traditions done on the basis of a normal literary history focused on the places and dates of textual composition yields a chronological overview, where certain major traditions are seen as remaining popular over time through a steady production of new texts, whereas other minor systems become replaced by the development of new schools. In contrast, a microhistorical study that assesses the popularity of the different traditions of grammar by examining their concrete textual representations in a particular manuscript collection reveals a local historical record of the popularity of each system within a specific educational community. The present essay provides a microhistorical study of the Digambara manuscript collection Āmer Śāstrabhaṇḍār from Āmer and Jaipur in Rajasthan dating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. It contributes to the educational history of India by revealing an unexpected continued popularity of the late medieval Sārasvata grammar tradition in the Jaipur area long after this minor grammatical system otherwise has been thought to have gone out of vogue.

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2015 PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH PAPER: Use and Evolution of Languages in Jain Literature

Tulsi Prajna, 2015

The article is based on historical development of Jain literature in different languages. This en... more The article is based on historical development of Jain literature in different languages. This endeavor inspires from Jain literature historical perspective. The linguists have been claiming that Śauraseni Prakrit and its variety of literature is a later development of Chhandas (Vedas language). In this article, it has also shown contribution of Jain scholars to develop Indian vernaculars and how classical and modern Indian languages have been used that shows evolution in of languages as a case study in Jain literature. Where necessary it discusses on Jain doctrine. Since in the historical framework
the meaning of the historic constants is given by the norms or rules for their use in a debate.
Keywords: History, Historical linguistics, Indian literature, Archaeological artifacts, Jainism

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