Comtemporary Jain Legends

Author(s): Atmanandji Maharaj
Publisher: Shrimad Rajchandra Ashram

Page 33

05. DharmVeer Shree Veerchand Raghavji Gandhi
Dr. Kumarpal Desai The wheel of time fail to wipe out certain events and personalities. These footsteps laid on the sea-sand of time do not disappear in spite of repeated tempests. The new world of America heard for the first time the determined and brilliant voice of Indian culture and Indian scriptures in the World Religion Conference held at Chicago in America 92 years ago. The two representatives of India attending this Conference awakened the world towards the spiritual heritage of their mother country. One of these, two personalities was Swamy Vivekanand whose success at the Conference has been on the lips of every Indian even today, but even more successful was the representative of Jain religion, Shri Veerchandbhai Raghavji Gandhi. Indians are habituated to forget to right the lamps of their own houses! so Shri Veerchandbhai is least remembered by us to day. The people who forget their spiritual personalities who are like the books of enlightenment do not come out of their narrowmindedness. Let us remove the curtain of time covering this glorious event of World Religion Conference at Chicago in America held before 92 years ago. There were more than 3,000 representatives from different countries believing in different religions attending this Conference and more than one thousand essays were read at it. The audience was of about 10,000. The Conference was opened on September 11, 1893 AD and highly learned personalities like Veerchand Gandhi, Swamy Vivekanand and P.C. Majmudar went from India to take part in this Conference. The main purpose of the Conference was to impart knowledge of different religions of the world, to create brotherhood among the followers of various religions and thereby establish peace in the world. The speech of 29 year old Shri Veerchand Gandhi impressed everyone very deeply. Shri Veerchand had a turban with golden lace on his head in the style of Kathiawar, a long loose gown on his body; a white woolen blanket on his shoulders and country-shoes with pointed ends on his feet. Hs dress, thus, revealed Indian culture. The Conference was set aback with the deep knowledge, detailed studies, impartiality and pointed speech. One American newspaper wrote, "Among the learned personalities of East, the lecture on Jainism and character-building delivered by a Jain Youth was heard by the audience with so much deep interest as no other lecture of any Eastern scholar was heard." Veerchandbhai presented the principles of Jainism with so much knowledge that some newspapers published it word-to-word. He had the skill of explaining the terms of Jainism very effectively in simple language. He could strengthen his views with logic and philosophy. He explained the Jainism on one side and expressed his own interpretation on other side. It is not enough to study Sanskrit and Prakrit to understand Bharatiya Darshan Indian Scriptures but one has to be well studied of very old culture also. Veerchandbhai had these merits and that is because he appears to be a Jain at one place and other than Jain at another place but, certainly, he is Indian everywhere. His speech was not invested with simply book learning. His deep study of various spiritual views was evident throughout his lecture. There were feelings with pleadings. The thinking of Vivekanand and Veerchandbhai reveals broad-mindedness in Indian spiritual philosophy. They