________________
Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
of 1
શ્રી આત્માનંદ પ્રકાશ
bold scheme to revise the text of the Jaina canonical literature in the light of the new materials now available as a result of recent research. As is well-known, the last seat of the Agamas was carried out nearly 1500 years ago under the guidance of Shri Devardhi Gani Kshamashramana. It was in recognition of this great undertaking that the Jaina community honoured him with the title of 63111749 1197', although he never cared for any title or epithet as he did not even accept the title of 'Th' and r'. Work was his worship and was the greatest reward by itself. In 1959, Muniji was elected President of the sectional conference on History and Ancient Indian Culture on the occassion of the twentieth session of the Gujarati Sahitya Parishad at Ahmedabad and two years later, he was elected President of the Prakrit and Jainism section of the twentyfirst session of the All-India Oriential Conference which had met at Shrinagar in Kashmir.
In February 1969, when Muniji completed sixty years of his life after initiation as any, felicitations were extended to him in a volume ( Frisla) containing his own writings and an account of his life and works together with appreciations from scholars here and abroad. While paying respectful tributes to Muniji Prof. Klaus Bruhn of Germany had said, "Muni Punyavijayji is perhapsthe greatest living specialist in the field of Jaina literature but he is not a specialist in the sense that he devoted all his life-time to the study of one particular section of the material. He had a rare instinct for urgency which compelled him to shift his interest from one field to another, as soon as he felt that the most urgent work had been completed and that new and different tasks awaited for his attention.” Similarly, Prof. W. Norman Brown of the University of Pensylvania, U. S A., had said, "He has been throughout his whole career a worthy representative of the best Indian tradition of learning and teaching.” Prof. Dr. Ludwig Alsdorf, Professor of Indology in the University of Hamburg called him, “A model monk and true scholar of wide interests."
I have said earlier in this article and will say again that it was in his devotion to work and dynamism of thought that the true greatness of Muniji lay. He was never swept away with either appreciation or opposition and what was most astonishingly revealing about him was that even though deeply absorbed and closely closetted with the works of the past, he was not closed in his mind and in his approach and that gave him the vision of a true any and a religiously upright man. He attached great impo
For Private And Personal Use Only
