Gyananjali Punyavijayji Abhivadan Granth

SR No.: 012058
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Ramnikvijay Gani
Publisher: Sagar Gaccha Jain Upashray Vadodara
Publication Year: 1969
Total Pages: 610
Language: Gujarati, Hindi, English
Classification: Smruti_Granth & Articles
File Size: 15 MB

Page 498

અભિવાદન
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Such has been Muni Punya Vijaya's career, a double career of scholarly production on his own part and of scholarly assistance to others working in the field of Jainism. Thus, his contribution to Jain studies has consisted of direct production by himself and indirect influence upon others engaged in research. He has been throughout his whole career a worthy representative of the best Indian tradition of learning and teaching. When last I saw him, which was a few years ago, he seemed both physically and mentally strong, and destined to fill out many years of selfless scholarly activity and generosity. Long may he continue in the kind of labour which he has pursued for the past sixty years!
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Prof. Dr. W. Norman Brown Professor Emeritus of Sanskrit University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U. S. A.
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It is a privilege as well as a real joy for me to contribute a few lines to the Jnananjali to be presented to Agama Prabhakara Munimaharaj Punyavijayaji on his completion of sixty years of his life as a monk. My connection with him dates from the time when, in 1931, I was presented with a copy of the then just published edition of the Vasudevahindi, on the title page of which his name as an editor is associated with that of his venerable Guru Munimaharaj Catura vijaya. The text made known for the first time by the two erudite monks proved to be of exceptional interest and importance for the literary history not only of Jainism but of India in general; to me personally it soon became the object of rewarding researches occupying me to this day. A few years later, just before the outbreak of the second world war, Punyavijayaji did not hesitate to send me a manuscript from Patan bhandar on loan to Berlinan unprecedented step which might be taken as a symbol of what must certainly be regarded as the essence of his life-work, his greatest achievement and his everlasting service to the cause of Jainism and of Indology- the preservation and safeguarding, re arranging and cataloguing, and making accessible to research of the magnificent manuscript treasures formerly locked up and jealously guarded in the bhandars of Gujarat and Rajasthan. I had a unique opportunity of watching this work in progress when during my first visit to India after the war, in 1951, I was invited by Muniji to