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જ્ઞાનાંજલી
Shri Dāhyābhāi Dosi and Shrimati Mānekhen, the father and mother, called him Manilal. The father went to Bon bay to earn bis living while the mother and the child stared in Kapadranj.
One day, Manekren went to the riverside to wash clothes leaving Manilal, a child of two or three montos onl., slemping soundly in the cradle, when the house caught fire and before the mother could return, almost the whole house was gutted and the mother wailed that her only son was burnt alive.
But God willed otherwise. A local Muslim Bohra gentleman, passing by, had immediately rushed in the house, saved the cbild and carried him to his own house. Those were the cays when Hindus and Muslims lived peacefully together and respected each others' religious sentiments. So the Bohra gentleman went to another Hindu house and brought milk etc. in the Hindu's utensils and sed the child. Then he wept out, found the mother, broke the good news and assured that her child was not fed with Muslim's utensils, water etc. So Manilal, destined to become a scholar monk and a friend of all scholars irrespective of caste or creed, was saved by a pious gentleman of another creed.
The father, learning the catastrophy rushed back to Kapadvanja and took his wife and son to Bombay where during their stay of about eight to ten years aạilal had his primary education. Then another catastrophy, a blessing in disguise, occurred. Shri Dahyabhai died. Manilal was only ten years old. Manekben, his widowed mother, of a deeply religious miod, realised the transitoriness of the world and desired to become a Jaina nun. But what to do with the son who was barely ten years old ! Manekben sold off everything and the whole property, turned into cash, was deposited with an honest, reliable merchant of her community, with the instructions that the property may be handed over to her son if in future her son (wborn she bad decided to consecrate as a Jaina monk) demands the property, after giving up monkhocd, wishing to return to the Samsāra.
After going on a pilgrimage to the mount Satruñjaya, sbe came back to the village Chhāņi, close to Baroda, where Pravartaka Muni Sri Kantivijayaji was staying with his disciples. At her request Manilal only 13 years old, was consecrated as a Jaina monk at the bands of Muni Sri Chaturavijava, a worthy pupil of Pravartaka Sri Kāntivijayaji. The boy monk was called Punyavijaye. This barpened on the fifth day of the dark half of the month of Māgha in the V.S. 1965=February 1909, Wednesday,
The very next day the mother took dikșa as a Jaina nun and was heuceforth known as Sadhvi Ratanasti.
Neither the son nor the mother returned to the worldly bondage. Punyavijaya was fortunate in having as his teacher an able scholar and researcher Muni Sri Chaturvijayaji and as his grand-teacher, the great personality well-known as
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