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 589

જ્ઞાનાંજલી
I have watched him praying and chanting hymns with full devotion in a Jiana temple at Delyada and that showed me the quality of his heart.
In 1952, when the Seventeenth session of the All India Oriental Conference took place at Ahmedabad, Muni Punyavijayaji selected and brought to Ahmedabad from various Bbandāras several palm-leaf and paper-manuscripts of various types and arranged a first class exhibition in the Town Hall at Ahmedabad, the like of which has not been arranged in India, in living memory. His address on this Occasion will be found in the collections of his papers published in this volume.
In 1959 Muni Śri Punyavijayaji was elected President of the section of History and Ancient Inidian Culture of the Twentieth session of the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad, Ahmedabad. In 1961, he was elected President of the Prakrits and Jainism Section of the Twenty-first session of the All India Oriental Conference, which met in Srinagar, Kashmir.
The Mahavira Jaina Vidyalaya, Bombay, with the financial assistance of several Jaina donors, has undertaken to publish critical texts of the Jaina canon which are now being published under the joint editorship of Muni Sri Puņyavijayaji and Pandit Prof. Dalsukhbhai Mālvania. In Prof. Malvania, a worthy disciple of Pandit Sukhlalji and the able Director of L.D. Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad, Muniji has obtained a worthy collaborator and successor in his old age for the work of critical editions of the Jaina Āgamas.
In about 1953-54 the Jaina Samgha at Baroda recognised him and honouring the Muniji's work on the Āgamas conferred on him the rare title of AgamaPrabhākara. Muniji never cares for name, power or position. He has persis. tently refused the offer of the title of Sūri or Acharya which his elders amongst monks were eager to confer on him. He prefers to remain a simple Jaina Muni. It is because of these qualities in him that he is loved by almost all the monks of various Jaioa Gacchas even though on several theological matters they do not see eye to eye. Muniji has been trying to bridge over the differences and bring together the various Achāryas of the Svetämbara community in his humble way.
Though not officially recognised he is one of the greatest living leaders of the Svetāmbara Jaina community of monks.
The title of Āgama-Prabhakara which the Jaina Samgha has decided to attach to his name is quite appropriate. In fact he is doing a new Vacana of the Jaina Canon, after about fifteen hundred years since the last one was done at Valabhi, in the later half of the fifth century A.D., under the guidance of Sri Deverdhi Gani Kşamāśramaņa.
May he live long enough to complete it! I offer my humble Homage to this great Jaina erudite monk.