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Presidential Address of Shri R.R. Diwakar
lies dedicated to Mahavira as his birth-place. None use it nor is it cultivated. It remains inviolate and virgin. It is there on that plot that the foundation of a memorial to Mahavira is laid today by our beloved President.
It was on account of this significant background, political, cultural and religious, that Vaishali attracted the attention of scholars as well as laymen and it soon turned into a place of archaeological and cultural importance. It became a place of pilgrimage when the Vaishali Sangh under the inspiring guidance of Dr. S.K. Sinha, began to celebrate the Vaishali Mahotsav since a few years.
It is this multi-sanctified area today that the foundation is laid by our Union President of an Institute for Post-graduate Studies and Research in Prakrit, Jainology and Ahimsa.
It should be specially noted that Ahimsa is qite a new and very fruitful subject for research. Here Ahimsa does not mean merely the theological or the religious aspect of it but means the doctrine of Ahimsa including the doctrine of love which in fact is the foundation of all life and relationship between sentient beings. The research in this subject has become much more important in view of our great traditions and emphasis laid on it by Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. In fact, in Jainism, Ahimsa is the keynote and cornerstone. In recent years, Mahatma Gandhi in his own life and in all that he said and did, exhibited the potency and usefulness of Ahimsa in all fields of human activity including relations between nation and nation. Panch-Shila is a corollary of Ahimsa in the international field. Dr. Albert Schweitzer in his profound writings has pointed out that reverence for life (this is but the 20th century western edition of Ahimsa) must be the foundation of new values, if civilization is to be saved. All these point to the fact as to how profound and basic is the doctrine of Ahimsa, how comprehensive is its sweep, and how wide are its implications for man as a social being.
The founding of this Institute is one more proof of the fact that the Bihar Government is fully alive to its obligations in the field of thought and culture, since Bihar has the richest legacy from the
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