Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Criticism of Jainism


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep.

The subject meets WP:GNG in no far stretch of the policy. As with any religious articles, they invite controversy and criticisms of their own. Sources will inevitably be accepted at different levels of POV but it is undeniable that this subject has been covered by numerous independent publications and will continue to be. Regardless the existing tensions between editors or action at other articles are not strong grounds for any outcome. Clarity and specificity to the merge and delete rationales in terms of the sources, applicable policies, and quantity required verge on WP:HEY and WP:ATA. In terms of the balance or article requiring more sources to substantiate its statements those are surmountable and editiorial issues. Please note this AfD is to in no way affect the results of the CP investigation whether that results in a fix or delete outcome. Mkdw talk 02:55, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Criticism of Jainism

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The topic Criticism of Jainism does not have any significant coverage in reliable sources. This makes it near impossible to avoid original research when extracting the content. It is hence appropriate to delete this article. Rahul (talk) 06:17, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep All references seem to be RS. Criticism of other religions also have articles.-- Redtigerxyz Talk 06:44, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem is that the reliable sources do not have significant coverage of the topic. Anything presented, thus, has to be manipulated somehow to fit in the article. It has also been suggested that we somehow cherry-pick quotes to make it sound coherent with the subject, despite the fact that reliable source is discussing something else entirely. This in my opinion is a recipe for original research. Also, Just because criticism of other religions have an article, it does not mean that criticism of Jainism should also have an article. --Rahul (talk) 12:26, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't think we ever cherry pick or wrongly present the reliable source. The only problem is that you have some passion of POV pushing agenda of all Jainism articles, all of these leads everyone to think that you just oppose whatever is presented other than your wish. Bladesmulti (talk) 12:37, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Besides criticism of Jainism by Adi Shankara and Dayananda, Guru Nanak, founder of Sikhism, also criticized Jainism . Other links:,-- Redtigerxyz Talk 16:46, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Speedy Keep - This has been nominated by User Rahul Jain due to his personal vendetta. He is a Single Purpose Account, who wants to criticize all other religions especially Hinduism but cannot accept criticism of Jainism. As said by above by Redtigerxyz all references are RS. Criticism of other religions also have articles too. Jethwarp (talk) 07:13, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * If something needs to be taken to AfD it is Jainism and Hinduism article, which was created by him after being repeatedly declined at Articles of Creation for lack of multiple sources and original research and fringe theory. Jethwarp (talk) 07:13, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I feel that the comment sounds a bit rude. Would it be possible for you to strike out the comment, or re-word it calmly and neutrally? --Rahul (talk) 09:14, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * But he's correct if he called you a SPA. Bladesmulti (talk) 12:12, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Speedy Keep - It's obvious that much of the criticism of Jainism came from the 18th - 19th century Christian missionaries, same with the Criticism of Hinduism, commonly these missionaries were racist, ignorant, and filled with hatred. Such unimportant and useless quotes had flooded the Criticism of Jainism, as well as Criticism of Hinduism, on here. But we have removed them, we stick to those criticism who have some credibility.
 * Considering that this page is 1.5 times bigger than Criticism of Hinduism, even bigger than Criticism of Sikhism, but not as bigger as Criticism of Buddhism(gonna check in future), so it must be kept. Bladesmulti (talk) 07:34, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That doesn't really address the initial rationale put forward. Comparison of size of this article with other similar articles is not a strong argument. --Rahul (talk) 12:44, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That's just another point that why the article has to be kept, WP:OSE doesn't fit here, because it favors the popularity. Bladesmulti (talk) 12:53, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete. Not enough reliable sources. The existence of other Criticism articles on religion isn't a persuasive argument. They all are intrinsically POV-forks and are magnets for vandalism. I'm an uninvolved user coming here after having commented at RSN. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:40, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete It doesn't seem to contain enough RS material for its own article. At most, I would suggest salvaging content from here that is not on the main Jainism page, if any. Vanamonde93 (talk) 08:33, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Merge with Jainism. What are the criteria for including "criticism"? Theological/philosophical debate? 2500 years of debate is waiting to be incorporated... Joshua Jonathan  - Let's talk!  10:41, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Only for technicality seeing the sizes of both pages, i wouldn't support merging. §§ Dharmadhyaksha §§ {T/C} 11:15, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Merge with Jainism - Page does cover some important points, but isn't notable enough to have its own article. --MrRatermat2 (talk) 12:37, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Merging is certainly not a good idea, since the article is already large enough(exceeding 5,000 bytes) for it's own page, in fact it has above 12,000 bytes, even higher than criticism pages of some other religions! Bladesmulti (talk) 12:39, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * No, merging would work fine, because the material here would belong better in the article about Jainism, and then as that article develops, daughter articles can be spun off in a non-POV-fork manner, for example to cover the two sects' divergent understanding of women's role. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:56, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Your views are not really balanced, once you requested for the deletion, and you haven't even slashed your previous thought in this page. Once again, you think merging would really work? Since the article is much bigger than some other similar articles. Bladesmulti (talk) 17:23, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * @ User:Itsmejudith and User:Vanamonde93 - your arguments for delete just becoz Not enough reliable sources is not a valid argument for delete vote. It means in other sense that article is supported by reliable sources at present and you may wish to add further sources to it!! Jethwarp (talk) 17:49, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Right on Jethwarp, Exactly.. Just add a tag, and keep working.. Bladesmulti (talk) 17:55, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Also I would like to thank Redtigerxyz  Talk for notifying that even there are further information available of Criticism of Jainism by Adi Shankara and Guru Nanak, which needs to be incorporated into article. So, your arguments for delete makes no sense as per wiki policy on deletion. So, with additional material available about views of Guru Nanak and Adi Shankara merge with Jainism is also not a good idea. Jethwarp (talk) 18:09, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with Adi Shankara, but Guru nanak? Guru nanak's sole aim was to get followers towards his religion or philosophy.. Shankara and Dayanand are like, they are highly admired for presenting the important aspects of life, by reliable sources. So I don't agree with Guru nanak really. Bladesmulti (talk) 18:17, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Guru Nanak's motives are immaterial. If his criticism has been included in secondary sources, his opinion goes in the article. If the criticism is also criticized as you say due to his motives, that too can go in. The weightage can be decided later on. But there's no reason to exclude it. §§ Dharmadhyaksha §§ {T/C} 19:16, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep. "Otherstuff" aside, this page raises questions that really do come up with all "Criticism of (a religion)" articles: whether the discussants are motivated by WP:ILIKEIT or WP:IDONTLIKEIT, and whether such pages are, intrinsically, problematic as POV-forks or vandal-magnets, etc. – and nominations such as this one are perennials at AfD. We can easily go around in these circles, but in the end, the subject matter satisfies WP:GNG. The page currently cites approximately a dozen sources (depending on how one counts them) that satisfy WP:RS, demonstrating enduring interest among reliable secondary sources. Looking at what else might be available as sourcing, the amount of scholarly sources are, indeed, somewhat lesser than for many other criticisms of religions:, but such coverage does exist. And with 200+ hits in books: , this is clearly something that does not fail GNG. If there are problems with cherry-picking of material from the sources, that can be fixed through the editing process, and is not an inevitable and intrinsic characteristic of the page, and therefore is not a valid reason to delete. Likewise for being a vandal-magnet, where there is always the possibility of page protection. The question of merging into the parent page is a subjective one, but given the existence of sufficient sourcing to pass GNG as a standalone page, I do not see any compelling reason to merge (and IDONTLIKEIT certainly is not a compelling reason). There have been many previous discussions about "Criticism of" articles, not just of religions, and the previous consensus has always been against eliminating such pages as a general rule, so that is not a good reason for merging in this case. I've read all of this discussion so far, and I do not see a valid argument (separate from personal dislike) that GNG has not been satisfied. It does not fail GNG, and it does not fail WP:NOT, so on policy grounds it's a keep. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:20, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for taking the time to put together a policy-related argument. I really do not think that this article is properly sourced, or even that it will be possible to find sources. Sure, there are some scholarly sources cited, but they are cobbled together to create an essay. Is there one single source that actually contains criticism of Jainism? Itsmejudith (talk) 18:33, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * As the title of the source, apparently not, but yes, if you look at my book search link, you will find many that use the phrase verbatim. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:35, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That is far fewer than 200 hits in books. If you look down the list, most are repetitions of statements made in other items. I'm sure you know that this isn't how we do research for WP and you are just using it as a rule of thumb. It would be useful to take this back to RSN for more opinions. I'm also going to WikiProject Religion for views in general of the Criticism of… series of articles (not Criticism of religion, because that is a different case). Could you point me towards where you say there is a consensus to keep "Criticism of" articles in general? The vast majority of such articles have been merged and I rarely see cases where that is inappropriate. It is a pretty pure form of POVFORK, after all. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:45, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm replying to you here, especially since most of the other editors are just repeating themselves. But I'll say to them as well as to you that I do indeed understand that WP:GHITS is nothing more than a rule of thumb. No, I don't envision a page with 200 inline citations! I'm just saying that there are enough sources to pass WP:GNG. Anyway, I think it's relevant to point out that the last paragraph of WP:POVFORK actually addresses pages with "Criticism of" titles, and says: "There is currently no consensus whether a "Criticism of..." article is always a POV fork, but many criticism articles nevertheless suffer from POV problems." I think that's as close to an "official" statement of current policy consensus as we are going to find. You asked me about previous discussions. It comes up perennially at the Village Pump. The discussion I remembered was Village pump (policy)/Archive 76. Other similar discussions include Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive R and Village pump (policy)/Archive 44. Although it's "otherstuff", I've also seen a lot of AfDs for other criticism of religion pages, and I've yet to see one that ended in delete. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:16, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * PS: It just occurred to me that you said, of the previous discussions, "where [I] say there is a consensus to keep "Criticism of" articles in general". Strictly speaking, it isn't really a clear consensus to keep, so much as no consensus to delete. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:21, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Not true. Sometimes criticism is often undeniable and impossible to refute. Already told you before. Bladesmulti (talk) 18:50, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * So I can see that you completely misunderstand WP:NPOV. It is of no significance at all whether criticism can be refuted or not. It is not up to us on Wikipedia to decide such matters. What matters is whether there is notable criticism. I have yet to be shown one source that deals at any length with Criticism of Jainism. But let's say for a minute that there is some notable criticism, then it should be covered in Jainism. When we create daughter articles we must avoid doing so on point of view lines. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:36, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Few lines, actually how many? 1? 2? 3? 4? Criticism in this page is far bigger than that. Bladesmulti (talk) 11:22, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It gives just 9 results to me in Google Scholars. The google books give 200+ results, that is true, however, most of them does not deal with the criticism of Jainism at all. The books that have some mention of criticism of Jainism are confined to first three pages. Most of them deals either with Shankaracharya or Dayananda's criticism. One book, (A History of Indian Literature by Shishir Das) gives a passing remark to Sambandar. After page 3 of google books, I find books like "Why I Am Not a Christian" of Betrand Russel and "God is not great" of Christopher Hitchen. --Rahul (talk) 18:51, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Hitchens hasn't criticized Jainism, Hinduism, Sikhism though, he just touched the topics somewhat when he talks about the Osho in critical sense, but that's not really necessary. But we already had some suggestions above, that what we can add to this article. Bladesmulti (talk) 18:54, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Apparently, my point was, out of that 200+ results on google books, more than half does not deal with criticism of Jainism. Others do not have significant coverage, or just mention it in the passing. --Rahul (talk)


 * The google books result, in reality, gives only 51 results. Out of them only 24 books has the phrase "Criticism of Jainism" and none of them deals with the topic in any detail. This is not sufficient to say that it satisfies Wikipedia's notability guidelines. @User:Tryptofish can you clarify what makes the topic meet notability criteria? --Rahul (talk) 04:35, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I thought I already did explain that, but it seems to me that each of the points listed at WP:GNG has been met. If we take your estimate of 24 books, that is clearly enough sources right there to satisfy GNG. It sounds like you are trying to argue that, just because not all of the search results are useful sources for our purposes, no sources exist, and that is just not logical. However, I'm open to discussing the possibility that sources have been cited that only touch on the topic, and were cited in such a way as to be misleading to make it sound like something that was not intended by the source to be criticism of Jainism was criticism of Jainism (see WP:Cherrypicking). To do that, I'm going to need you to be specific. If there are sources already cited on the page that have been misrepresented through cherry-picking, then I'm in favor of taking them out. But I'm not going to accept on face value the declaration that "none of them" is a valid source, so you need to back that up with specifics. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:08, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I am not arguing that "just because not all of the search results are useful sources for our purposes, no sources exist". My point is specifically that "none of the 24 sources actually discusses criticism of Jainism in detail". They only touch the topic in passing. Two prominent Hindus who have criticized Jainism are Dayananda and Shankaracharya. Dayananda was was religiously intolerant and the books like "Social Work and Developmental Issues" By Hajira Kumar, "The Arya Samaj Movement in South Africa" by Thillayvel Naidoo, "World Perspectives on Swami Dayananda Saraswati" By Gaṅgā Rām Garg shows the Dayananda's religious intolerance towards other religions using Jainism, Buddhism etc as example. They barely talk about criticism of Jainism, and mostly deal with criticism of Dayananda. Shankaracharya criticized Jainism in his commentary on Brahmasutra. Books like "A Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy" By Chandradhar Sharma have a very small (6-7 lines) account of it. Most of shankaracharya's criticism is already covered in a featured article Anekantavada and a good article Karma in Jainism. One of the books ("A History of Indian Literature, 500-1399: From Courtly to the Popular" By Sisir Kumar Das) mention that Sambandar's songs "also betray his strong criticism of Jainism and Buddhism". Just because the books contain the phrase "Criticism of Jainism" doesn't mean it is necessarily dealing with it. It is not enough for a full article for its own. WP:GNG clearly says about significant coverage, which none of the books have. Can you give a look to those results and see if you can find one or two books which has significant coverage? --Rahul (talk) 07:43, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't care what you thinks. If you don't like to follow wikipedia rules, it's your choice, but it's not allowed. Winston Churchill can be regarded as racist, hater, and whatever, but still his criticism is added to the articles. Bladesmulti (talk) 07:51, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I've already looked at the page, as it was just before the blanking, and there were enough sources there to pass GNG, given the amount of content that could be generated from the sources cited (allowing for the fact that the section sourced to the BBC will have to be reworded). Even if none of the books in the search result really gave significant coverage, which I strongly doubt, the page already passes GNG. The word "significant" is, of course, a subjective one, and thus it can be debated, where editors sincerely disagree as to what is or is not significant. What GNG actually says is: "Significant coverage is more than a passing mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material." The footnote at the end of that sentence makes clear what "passing mention" means, and it's really pretty much the same thing as WP:Cherrypicking. Again: "it need not be the main topic". I fear that any example I give, you will respond by saying that it's not significant enough, especially because you have argued here that you would discount criticisms made by authors whom you consider to be hostile. Just using what you, yourself, just said, I would argue that Dayananda and Shankaracharya are two notable sources of criticism, notable enough that we have pages about each of them. The fact that they criticized Buddhism or other religions as well does not mean that they did not also criticize Jainism, and it makes no difference whether Wikipedia editors agree or disagree with them. Sambandar is also a critic, from what you say, and we appear, from what you say, to have reliable sourcing to indicate that he criticized Jainism (and other religions too), and his songs are significant enough to have received commentary in the secondary source you just cited. None of this is what GNG calls "passing mention". --Tryptofish (talk) 21:33, 18 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:20, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions. Jethwarp (talk) 04:08, 15 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Speedy keep - This article is quite old and there are similar articles for other religions. -Abhishikt (talk) 20:11, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * To note that you created the article and also that you plagiarised the BBC when you did so. We now have to check that there is no copyvio in the article as it is. Similar articles for other religions isn't a reason to keep. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:34, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Although I agree that the otherstuff argument is not valid, and I strongly agree that any copyviolation must be remedied, when I look at the page pre-blanking, the only section that seems to be based on the BBC source is the section called "Criticism of religious practices". I just looked through the article editing history, and there are multiple editors who added content, so we will have to wait on the investigation before concluding whether the rest of the page is problematic or not. Also, even the contested material from the BBC appears to have been reliably sourced and could be rewritten to eliminate any plagiarism. I'm pointing all of this out because there can be a natural tendency for editors to look at a blanked page and conclude, wrongly in this instance, that of course it should be deleted. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:00, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I wasn't using this as a reason for deletion. Sorry, I didn't check how much of the present article is affected. I hope the investigation will find that out. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:35, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * No problem, I understand that. I'm just trying to head off any unintended consequences. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:39, 16 December 2013 (UTC)


 * If you did not check how much of present article is affected then why did you blank whole page for copyright violation - just because you don't like it. Did you ever got thru Talk:Criticism of Jainism - the article was created after lot of debate and creating consensus on what should be included and what not. If you think BBC article is a copyright violation - then it is not - just got to the given link and you will find other sources also mention same thing what BBC article says - Sexual Knowledge, Sexual Science: The History of Attitudes to Sexuality edited by Roy Porter, Mikuláš Teich page 71. I can also cite multiple sources many are available in Hindi and other Indian languages. There is no copyright violation as such which cannot be rectified. You are trying to scuttle the AfD debate by using copyright violation. Also please go to link  - there are multiple books saying that sect of Janis believe that women cannot attain moksha. If you do not have in-depth knowledge of the subject - please get some.  User Rahul Jain did not like criticism he went to WP:RSN, where-in you commented the article should go - he took a lead from there and nominated it see RSN Jethwarp (talk) 03:16, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The copyright violation needed attention. You will see from my exchange with Tryptofish that I'm not trying to scuttle the AfD. I have been quite clear that I don't find the existence of any of the Criticism of (religion) articles useful. That is for policy-related reasons; they are in their essence conceptually incoherent ragbags. I don't have a favourable attitude to Criticism of… articles in general. By the way, BBC overviews like this are not fully reliable for religion-related articles, which ought to be based on scholarly sources. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:13, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * My other argument is that there are insufficient reliable sources for a stand-alone article, and that any reliably-sourced material can go in the article on Jainism. I have looked at the chapter in Porter & Teich that you cite, by Julia Leslie. That is an excellent source. If used on Jainism is imperative to include the final point on the debate on women's bodies in Jainism, that the context of the debate was an argument between the two Jain sects. It is of course, critical of Jainism, in that it is entirely independent of that religion and does not shy from making points that could be construed as negative. What it also is not is an intervention into rivalry between different religions in India, and any attempt to use it in that way should be deprecated. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:27, 17 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Your arguments are not in concurrence to Wiki policies and guidelines. Firstly, there are enough reliable source as myself and others have already linked in this debate. Secondly, whenever any section grows beyond certain limits, there is a rule to make an article and this article and other Criticism of relgions articles have come into exsistance due to that reason. It is not a one or two line article which can be added back to Jainism article. Thirdly, what you or I think of this or that article is our personal opinion, which you are trying to emphasis again and again. But your or my opinion matters only if you give solid wiki policy reasons, why this article should be deleted or not deleted or be merged or so on.... You have not explained till now, as per which Wiki policy this article is a delete or anything else. Jethwarp (talk) 10:27, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:POVFORK. And insufficient reliable references. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:36, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Let me say to everyone here and to no one in particular that there are diminishing returns to repeating the same arguments over again. As for the page blanking, I suggest that editors use the edit history of the page to look at the version just before the blanking, and consider that there is only one section sourced to the BBC that may need to be rewritten, and consider all the other sections as well. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:58, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.