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My Motivation in Supporting Jain Studies at UC Davis
By Mrs. Mohini Jain
[Mrs. Mohini Jain Presidential Chair was established at the University of California, Davis, in 2016 with a $1 Million contribution by Mrs. Jain.]
Establishing a university chair for the advancement of Jainism has been my desire, my dream for the coming generation, and an expression of my Jain values.
Since immigrating to the US in 1973, I became aware of how underrepresented and misunderstood Jainism is in this country. First, many people have been and still are unaware that Jainism is a religion. Second, of the few who had heard of it, many did not know the core principles or had misconceptions about them. Finally, there was a dearth of resources available to inform people about Jainism, most notably at universities where Jainism courses were not offered. All of these factors led me to realize that Jains ourselves must champion our own history. The tremendous social and professional contributions we have made are diminished if people do not know about Jainism.
I decided that academic study of Jainism would be the most impactful, and that UC Davis would be the best fit because of their strong department of religious studies and my long association with the university. In 2013, I started looking at the department's curricula and noticed there were multiple faculty members and courses dedicated to most Indian religions but none for Jainism. This lack of recognition, despite Jainism being the oldest religion in India, strengthened my resolve to fill this gap. Thus, the Jain chair was established at UC Davis in 2016, and Jainism is now part of the curriculum with a faculty member dedicated to the study and teaching of Jainism.
