Jain Journal 1970 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 15

JANUARY, 1970
121
chen Gesellschaft). Last, in 1964, he received the degree of Ph.D. honoris causa of the University of Gent. In 1951, at his 70th birthday there appeared a Festschrift Schubring, with 20 contributions.
The editor of the Jain Journal in his inviting letter has kindly asked me to write an article on Jainism, which also should show my connection with my revered teacher. Indeed, whenever I met in India Jaina scholars, I had only to mention his name and to say I was his pupil to be received with the greatest kindness. As at present my own research has somehow shifted to other branches of Indian culture I did not feel competent to affer a research paper on Jainism. However, I do feel it to be not only my pious duty to contribute to a memorial issue of this Journal dedicated to my German Guru, but I am grateful that I was privileged to draw for our Indian colleagues and for the Indological world at large the outlines of the life of one of the greatest teachers of the last decades in Oriental Research in Germany. With him as a teacher, Indology became for his students far more than the study of a seemingly dead culture ; he was firmly rooted in the humanistic tradition of the West, which meant with him that every great culture of the past can and should be revitalized by every new generation, for the benefit of any individual. In a world and at a time where and when the dark powers of aggression and hatred are gaining ground wherever we look, men like him should be remembered and be looked up to beyond space and time. I trust this to become true with the memory of Walther Schubring.