Les expiations dans le rituel ancien des religieux Jaina(1965)
Academic advisors
Walther Schubring
Colette Caillat (15 January 1921 – 15 January 2007) was aFrench professor ofSanskrit andcomparative grammar. She was also one of the world's leadingJain scholars.
Caillat was born inSaint-Leu-la-Forêt,Seine-et-Oise. She embarked upon her academic career with the study ofClassical Latin andGreek, focusing on their literary and grammatical aspects. This led her to the study of Sanskrit underLouis Renou andJules Bloch, who replaced Renou who was visiting India. Bloch played a key role in exposing his students to Indian classical languages such asPali,Prakrit andApabhramsha as well as modernIndo-Aryan languages. Encouraged by the strong presence of Indian students in his class, Bloch taught his students various details of Indian life.
After clearing the French “Agrégation” civil service examination, Caillat taught at various secondary schools, until she found a post at theCentre national de la recherche scientifique. She was then free to devote all her time to Indian studies, starting with a mémoire on nominal derivation inMiddle Indo-Aryan which led her to readJain texts under the supervision ofWalther Schubring inHamburg. Schubring led Caillat firmly on the path ofJain studies and encouraged her to participate in the Critical Pali Dictionary.
Caillat first visited India in 1963 and remained a regular visitor to India throughout her life. In India, she developed close contact with A.N. Upadhye, Pandit D.D. Malvania, H.C. Bhayani,Pandit Sukhlalji and Muni Punyavijayaji. She stayed and worked several times in Mysore and Ahmedabad.
Caillat first taught Sanskrit and Comparative Grammar at theUniversity of Lyon from 1960 to 1966. She was appointed to theSorbonne University (then University of Paris-3) in 1967, as the successor of Louis Renou who had died suddenly, where she remained until retirement in 1988. She died on January 15, 2007. Her academic tradition is continued by her students, included among whom isNalini Balbir.
Her contribution to the field of Jain studies and Middle Indo-Aryan linguistics is manifold. Apart from a number of articles, her main books are the following:[4]
1965Les expiations dans le rituel ancien des religieux Jaina, Paris, 1965 (D.Litt. thesis), translated into English asAtonements in the Ancient Ritual of the Jaina Monks, Ahmedabad, 1975 (L.D. Series 49).
1966Drei Chedasûtras des Jaina-Kanons - Ayâradasâo, Vavahâra, Nisîha. Bearbeitet von Walther Schubring. Mit einem Beitrag von Colette Caillat, Hamburg, 1966.
1971Candâvejjhaya, La Prunelle-cible. Introduction, Edition critique, Traduction, Commentaire, Paris, 1971.
1974-75 C. Caillat, A.N. Upadhye andBal Patil,Jainism, Delhi, 1974–75. New edition, 2006.
1981La cosmologie jaina. Présentation de Colette Caillat d'après les documents recueillis par Ravi Kumar, Paris, 1981.The Jain Cosmology. English rendering by K.R. Norman, New Delhi; revised and enlarged edition, New Delhi, 2004.
1985 Edition of Recueil d'articles de Jules Bloch 1906–1955, Paris, 1985.
1999Yogîndu, Lumière de l'Absolu. Traduit de l'apabhramsha parNalini Balbir et Colette Caillat, Paris, Payot, Rivages, 1999.
2007 co-edition, with Nalini Balbir, of the volumeJaina Studies, Proceedings of the World Sanskrit Conference, Helsinki, 2003 (in press).
In 1981, Mme Caillat, who was the head of the research group "Equipe de Philologie Bouddhique et Jaina", organised in Strasbourg the first International Jain Symposium outside India. The Proceedings were published in 1983 (Indologica Taurinensia, Vol 11).
In 1988, a Felicitation volume was offered in her memory (published as Indologica Taurinensia, Vol 14).
In 2007, 1000 copies of Acarya Joindu'sYogasara were distributed free of cost in her memory (published as Pandit Nathuram Premi Research Series, Vol 10).
In 2011 the Pali Text Society publishedCaillat's Selected Papers (Oxford,ISBN0-86013-479-2).
^Jean Leclant (28 February 2011)."Bilan 2007" (in French). Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. Archived fromthe original on 17 September 2018. Retrieved17 September 2018.
"Colette Caillat". Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. 23 May 2021.
