Dhurtakhyan

Author(s): Haribhadrasuri, Jinvijay
Publisher: Saraswati Pustak Bhandar Ahmedabad

Page 8

(ITI
When Mahatma Gandhi personally visited his place in 1926, for a contribution to the Chittaranjan Seva Sadan, Babu Dalchandji Singhi gladly handed over to him a purse of Rs. 10,000,
His War contribution consisted in his purchasing War Bonds to the value of Rs. 3,00,000; and his contribution at the Red Cross Sales, held in March 1917, under the patronage of H. E. Lord Carmichael on Government House grounds, Calcutta, amounted to approximately Rs. 21,000, in which he paid Rs. 10,000 for one bale of jute which he had himself contributed. His anonymous donations are stated to have amounted to more than one lac cf rupees.
In his private life Babu Dalchandji Singhi was a man of extremely simple and unostentatious habits. Plain living and high thinking was his ideal. Although he had been denied a long academic career, his knowledge, erudition and intellectual endowments were of a very high order indeed, His private studies were vast and constant. His attitude towards life and the world was intensely religious, and yet he held very liberal views and had made a synthetic study of the teachings of all religions. He was also wellversed in the Yoga-darśana. During the latter part of his life he spent his days mostly in pilgrimage and meditation. Noted throughout the district and outside for his devoutness, kindness and piety, he is remembered even now as a pride of the Jaina community.
During the last days of his life, Babu Dalchandji Singhi cherished a strong desire to do something towards encouraging research in important works of Jaina literature and publishing their editions scientifically and critically prepared by eminent scholars. But fate had decreed otherwise; and before this purpose of his could become a reality, he expired.
However, Babu Bahadur Singhji Singhi, worthy son of the worthy father, in order to fulfil the noble wish of the late Dalchandji Singhi, continued to help institutions like the Jaina Pustaka Pra căraka Mandala, Agra; the Jaina Gurukula, Palitana; the Jaina Vidyabhavana, Udaipur, etc.; and also patronized many individual scholars engaged in the publication of Jaina literature. Besides, with a view to establishing an independent memorial foundation to perpetuate the memory of his father, he consulted our common friend, Pandit Sri Sukhlali, Professor of Jainism in the Benares Hindu University, an unrivalled scholar of Jaina Philosophy, who had also come in close contact with the late Babu Dalchandji Singhi, and whom the latter had always held in very high esteem. In the meanwhile, Babu Bahadur Singhji Singhi incidentally met the late Poet, Rabindranath Tagore, and learnt of his desire to get a chair of Jaina studies established in the Viśva. Bharati, Santiniketan. Out of his respect for the Poet, Babu Sri Bahadur Singhji readily agreed to found the chair (provisionally for three years) in revered memory of his dear father, and invited me to take charge of the saine. I accepted the offer very willingly, and felt thankful for the opportunity of