Bruhat Katha kosha

Author(s): Harishen Acharya,
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

Page 22

SINGHI JAIN SERIES
A Review By
Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterji, M.A. (Calcutta), D. Litt. (London), F.R.A.S.B., Khaira Professor of Indian Linguistics & Phonetics, Calcutta University; Philological Secretary to the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta.
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The Jaina Literature of Western India - Gujarat, Rajputana and Malwa - during the medieval and early modern periods forms quite a distinctive thing in the expression of Indian culture, and by its extent and variety presents a veritable embarras de richesse. Philosophy, legendary, hagiographical and historical narrative, folk-tale, ritual, monastic, discipline, topography, grammar and study of literature - these are the subjects which find special treatment in this literature, which is composed in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Apabhramsa and early forms of the vernaculars, like Gujarati and Marwari. Rich treasures of this and other literature are preserved very carefully in the many Jaina bhāṇḍārs or collections of books and MSS. in India, particularly in Gujarat and Rajputana, the strongholds of the Jaina faith in present-day India. These Mss. have from time to time been edited and published, much to the enrichment of our knowledge of the culture of ancient and medievel India, in which Jaina munificence has nobly co-operated with Indian and European scholarship. There are individual editions of some of the most important works, as well as editions in the various series, bearing ample testimony to the friendly rivalry of Laxmi and Sarasvati (to use the common Indian parlance) for the same end. Among the many series of Jaina texts, translations, lexicons and expositions, the latest, the Singhi Jain Granthamala, is one of the most remarkable, and in many respects, unique. In 1930, Seth Bahadur Singhji Singhi of Calcutta and Murshidabad, representative of an old family of princely merchants and bankers from Western India settled for some generations in Bengal, inaugurated in memory of his father the late Seth S'ri Dalchandji Singhi a foundation for Jaina studies (Singhi Jaina Jñana-pitha) and research in connexion with the Vis'vabharati Institute of Rabindranath Tagore at S'antiniketan in Bengal; and Muni S'ri Jinavijayaji as the first Director of the Jaina Research Foundation is bringing out the admirable editions and other works in the "Singhi Jain Series". The seat of the foundation has since been removed to Culcutta.
Muni S'ri Jinavijayaji is a remarkable personality, as we can gather from the brief autobiographical sketch in Sanskrit slokas given as an introductory matter in these volumes. This is an excellent idea-a knowledge of the personality of the author or editor makes for the better appreciation of work; we are reminded of the biographical sketch obligatory in German University theses. Muni Jinavijayaji was born as the son of a Rajput nobleman in Mewär. Early in life he was educated by a Jaina Yati of great learning and piety, named Devihamsa, and it was through him that he became initiated into Jainism and its philosophy. He lost his father and his guru while quite young. He finally became a Jaina monk, and in the Jaina cloisters he laid the foundation