Jain Journal 1970 01

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

Page 44

150
arrangements I had made for my residence in Berlin and I mentioned an address where I would lodge to start with. He said he did not know that street but would ask his wife who used to go to her art school daily by underground railway-before taking up the Hamburg Chair he was Librarian in the Oriental Section of the Berlin State Library. Next day he told me his wife also did not know the street but perhaps we could find it in the map of Berlin he had and which he now spread out on the table, but unfortunately the map was so old that what to speak of the street, not even a trace of the locality, a fairly new suburb, was to be found on it! Before I left for Berlin he gave me a letter of introduction to Herr Weibgen who had succeeded him as Librarian in the Oriental Section of the Berlin Library, and said he would write about me to Professor Lueders who held the Berlin Chair and with whom Schubring was on very friendly terms.
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JAIN JOURNAL
Heinrich Lueders is a great name among Indologists. Unlike Schubring who confined himself with single-minded devotion to Jainism alone, Lueders had made valuable contributions, like Hermann Jacobi, to many branches of Indology. When I contacted him after settling down in Berlin, he asked me to meet him at the Prussian Academy (the National Academy of Germany), of which he was a Secretary. I had already met him when he and his wife visited Santiniketan in 1928 and were received with great honour by Rabindranath, who during his visit to Berlin had seen what high status Lueders enjoyed in the acadamic world. Schubring also accompanied him in this visit to India but confined his tours to the Jaina centres of west, central and south India only. My next visit to Lueders took place in his home when we talked over my plan of work with him and it was arranged that I would attend his classes on the Vedas and on Indian Inscriptions, on both of which he was a recognised authority. When I asked him if I could do some Jaina topic also with him, he answered with a laugh "Well, you had better do that with Schubring himself when you return to Hamburg!"
Alsdorf and Matsunami spent some days in Berlin during my stay and Alsdorf used to attend Lueders' Vedic class with us. Among my fellow students in the Berlin Seminar, Helmut Hoffman is now Professor at Munich and Father Esteller is a Professor in the St. Xavier's College, Bombay. I was fortunate to belong to Lueders' last batch of students, for he retired at the end of that year. From Berlin I used to send regular reports of my Doctorate work to Schubring, the most important of which was my examination of some manuscripts of the Tenth