Padmanabh Jaini

Padmanabh Shrivarma Jaini (October 23, 1923 – May 25, 2021) was an Indian-American scholar of Jainism and Buddhism, living in Berkeley, California, United States.

[1] Jaini was born to a Digambar Jain family residing in Nellikar, a small town near Moodabidri, Karnataka, India on October 23, 1923.

[3] 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.

[4] After graduation, he was invited to study with Pandit Sukhlal Sanghavi, a renowned scholar belonging to the Sthanakvasi Jain tradition.

Here he became a Dharmananda Kosambi memorial Scholar and met B. R. Ambedkar (before his conversion to Buddhism) and was awarded Tripatakacarya degree in 1951 at the residence of the Prime Minister Senanayake.

From there he travelled to Burma, Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand to collect various Buddhist manuscripts which he later edited and translated for Pali Text Society.