Charlotte Krause her Life and Literature

Author(s): Shreeprakash Pandey
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

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see her in the Rest house in the early morning so that she could offer her pūjā in the Jaina temple. I met her with my brother and then I came to know that she was a staunch devotee of Jainism and did not take any thing, even a glass of water without visiting Jaina temple and having Darśana of Jina image. After that time whenever she came to Shajapur, she used to visit Jaina temple with my maternal brother. Next time I met her at Gwalior in her old age. At that time she had returned back to the Christianity and was living in a campus of Roman Catholic Church at Gwalior. I was working as a lecturer of Philosophy in the M. L. B. Arts and Commerce College, Gwalior ( 1964-1967 ). In Gwalior I visited her first time with Prof. G. R. Jain – the author of Jaina Cosmology : Old and New - a commentary on the fifth chapter of Tattvārtha-sūtra.
As I remember, at that time we had a long discussion on the holy symbol of Swastika. This was for the first time I could evaluate and appraise her depth of knowledge about oriental studies particularly, Jainism. But in her old age, her faith towards Jainism and Jaina community had been shakened. It was very pathetic and painful experience for me that the Jaina community could not be able to offer proper regard and service to this great scholar and devotee of Jainism and that is why she had to spend her old age in a campus of Christian church. In this particular case I was compelled to think that what has happened to our basic principles of Swadharmivātsalya, i.e. the service towards our fellow religious beings ? Who is responsible for all this? In my humble opinion it is the indifference of Jaina community towards the scholars, particularly the foreign scholars and devotees of Jain-ism. We should learn a lesson from it. We Jainas are completely unable to estimate her sacrifices she made for the noble cause of Jaina religion and Jaina studies. She had not only resigned from her university services, but left her relatives, nation, nationality and even her religion. How sad it is that we failed to provide her proper care and service in her old age, when she was badly needed for. In respect to