Bruhat Katha kosha

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

Page 23

[A 12] of that erudition which has now placed him in the forefront of Hindu scholarship at the present day, particularly in Jainism. His learning and austerities made him also a Muni, a monk who has attained to sainthood in Jainism. Later he busied himself, at Poona (in the Bhāņdārkar Research Institute) and elsewhere, in editing texts and inscriptions, and in carrying on Indological research and study in general. Mahātmā Gāndhi then called him to take charge of the Indian Research Department of the Gujarāt Vidyāpītha, the national university he had established at Ahmedabad. After eight years of fruitful work there, Muni Jinavijayaji went to Germany. A change in his attitude to life had already begun at Poona when he came in touch with Mahātmā Gāndhi and Lokamānya Tilak; and further, as the result of his coming in contact with the active and energetic mind of Europe in Germany, he sought to express himself in other activities than that of the simple scholar and teacher; and, returning to India, he plunged into the Satyāgraha movement, leaving for a while his studies and his researches in favour of social and political work. With many other prominent intellectuals he went to jail; and when he came out of it, he was invited by Mr. Bahadur Singh Singhi to take up the Chair of Jaina Studies established by him as a temporary measure at Santiniketan. With the traditional learning of Jaina Muni, universally respected for his scholarship, connected with the most important seats of learning and research at Baroda, Ahmedabad, Poona and Santiniketan, intimate collaborator through his own sphere of scholarship with men like Tilak, Gāndhi and Rabindranath Tagore, and travelled in Europe, Muni Sri Jinavijayaji is thus a unique personality in Indian scholarship; and the inauguration of a series of publications under his editing and supervision is a matter quite noteworthy in the field of Indology.
The volumes before us have been reproduced in a way which is quite worthy of the eminence and erudition of the editor. These are large-sized works, printed beautifully on good paper and in bold type at the well-known Nirnaya-Sagara Press of Bombay, and bound in stiff boards.
Five volumes are already in print, ten are printing, and besides, ten more are under preparation or waiting to be edited and prepared for the press. So far, all this excepting one-Bühler's Life of Hemacandrācārya translated from the German by Dr. Manilal Patel, Ph.D. (Marburg) of the Visvabhārati Vidyā-Bhavana, published 1936) has been Muniji's work, as a veteran scholar who has already to his credit the editing and publishing of quite a large number of texts, monographs etc.
The .Singhi Jain Series? begins with an edition of the Prabandho cintamani of Merutungācārya (early 14th century A. C.). This important historical work is contemplated to be completed in five parts of which the first two are out. The first part (pub. 1933) gives a critical edition of the Sanskrit text, based on the oldest and best MSS. available, and Muniji's edition easily puts out of date the first edition published long ago.
The second part (Pab. 1936), called the Purātana-Prabandhasangraha is a collection of many old prabandhas similar and analogous to the matter in the Prabandha-cintamani together with the gists of some of the prabandhas in the