Jain Journal 1970 01

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

Page 37

JANUARY, 1970
Central Library and the State Library, the two being combined at some places. The Libraries remained open also during holidays and vacations, and research workers were supplied with latch-keys, so that they could use the library at their own convenience. I did not yet seek out the Indian Seminar, which I put off till I had met my Professor although I had been told that, it, having but a few students, was located in the University building itself. As it was yet vacation time, I would roam about leisurely in the grounds of the main University building, and for reasons unknown a particular side of it attracted me; at one end of this lawn, there was a nook with a bower and benches, where I would seat myself and keep looking right in front of me upon an ivy-covered wall on the ground floor, raised hardly a foot from the ground, studded with large windows with glass panes.
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On the appointed day I found my way to the Indian Seminar and was admitted by the lady Secretary who led me to the Professor's room. Schubring received me very courteously but cautiously. We sat down and he asked me many questions regarding my previous studies, my former teachers Dr. B. M. Barua and Vidhusekhar Sastri, their methods of teaching, my further plans, etc.
I was the only Indian student who ever studied with him and so far as I know, the only one among all his students, past and future, to take up Jainism although he was the celebrated authority on it. So his curiosity and cautiousness was understandable. He was surprised that not being a Jaina myself, I should feel interested in Jainism (he had already seen some published work on the subject done by me which I had forwarded to him from India). When I was about to explain, he himself supplied the right reply, viz., that Jainism was not an attractive subject, not much work on it had been done on scientific lines by Indian scholars and hence it was a fruitful field for an Indian researcher to work in. In German universities it is indispensible for a research worker in any particular branch of culture to know the language in which the original material concerning that subject is written, well enough to be able to handle the original material independently without depending on translations only. It surprised him to learn that in India many students passed the M.A., and even obtained a Doctorate in Ancient Indian History and Culture without knowing much of Sanskrit. Regarding my past studies he asked if I had read the Rgveda. I told him I had done nothing of Vedic studies even with Vidhusekhar Sastri. who was an eminent Vedic scholar, because I had very little interest in it. Schubring