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Shri Gandhi showed me the photograph of an American lady(who was perhaps Mrs. Howard). She was performing the Samayika, dressed in the Indian attire, sitting on a mat (technical term 'Katasanu') with the 'Muhapatti'(a strip of cloth to cover the mouth) in her hand. The initiating Acharya was with her. She had a rosary in her hand. Shri Gandhi told me that when this lady chanted the Navakar mantra for a month, according to the special instructions of Shri Vijayanandsuri, she remembered her previous birth and told us about several incidents of her life during a previous birth in India'.
Virchandbhai had founded an organisation called 'The Society for the Education of Women of India'. The secretary of this society was Mrs. Howard. Some details of the activities of the society are included in this book under the heading 'Evaluating Virchandbhai as a Visionary of the Era of Education'.
2. Herbert Warren : This noble personality, initiated by Virchandbhai can be called an ideal Jain.
As Shri Mohanlal Dalichand Desai writes : To see an English gentieman giving up eating meat totally, heartily following the Jain rites, in a limited but truthful manner, having complete intellectual faith in the Jain philosophy getting steeped into religious study is a matter of great joy'.
Shri Virchandbhai had inagurated an organisation in England called 'Philosophical Society', through this Society, he had run classes for impart comparative knowledge of Jainism, Hindu Yoga and Buddhist philosophy. Herbert Warren attended these classes. He had kept notes of Virchandbhai's lectures at these classes. Whatever he inbibed from those lectures was enough to keep his faith steady in the Jain
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