Charlotte Krause her Life and Literature

SR No.: 001785
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Shreeprakash Pandey
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith
Publication Year: 1999
Total Pages: 674
Language: English, Hindi, Gujarati
Classification: Book_English, Biography, & Articles
File Size: 11 MB

Page 36

[xxix ]
Shivapuri has now lost its scholarly vibrations entirely, it lies now almost completely abandoned, the remarkable library is unused and filled with dust. It is still under the care of the aged secretary of Vijaya Indra Sūri, who enthusiastically talks about the old, glorious days and of Charlotte Krause, whom he knew personally. ]
Charlotte Krause now studied and worked in this famous academic yet remote and quiet place. Very soon, and partly by teaching her fellow students English and German, she mastered Hindi and Gujarati to a degree that she herself could deliver speeches and write essays and articles in these languages. The main subjects of her studies were Old Gujarati literature, Agamas and Jaina philosophy for which she found several erudite teachers like Śāsanadīpaka Jaina Muni Vidyāvijaya, Sāntamūrti Muni Jayantavijaya and Upādhyāya-Nyāyaviśārada-Nyāyatīrtha Mangalavijaya.
She integrated well into the life-style of the monks and the nuns and travelled on foot with them through the length and breadth of India. From several sources we know that she undertook the long walk lasting more than six months from Shivapuri to Bombay together with the monks following the Ācārya and his disciples. This was one of the manifold unique experiences giving her a profound insight into the activities of such a vihāra. On the way the group visited many important Jaina places, such as Gunā, Maksi, Māņdavagadha, Ujjain, Indore and Nasik. She thus came in direct contact with life in India, with its customs, dialects, various religions and sects and many Jaina communities.
During all these months she was in contact with her University in Germany and wrote lengthy letters to her teacher Johannes Hertel. A quotation from one of his letters written to her in 1927 echoes very well her accounts of this moving time : “...that the surroundings, in which you are living now attract you strongly, and that you at your youthful age ( she was 32 ) open widely your eyes, spirit and heart to all the beautiful, all that is worthy of seeing, learn