Jain Journal 1970 01

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

Page 48

154
JAIN JOURNAL
During my stay in Prague, the printing of my Dissertation was completed, Schubring himself having taken all the trouble of reading the proofs through. Before the printing was fully over he wrote to me to say that if I desired to prefix a Dedication to my work, I should send him the draft immediately. I sent him a sheet-"To my German Guru, Professor Dr. Walther Schubring". He replied to say that he had expected that I would make the dedication to my father. Shortly afterwards he informed me that he had given a copy of my work to Dr. Alsdorf for reviewing and had appointed Messrs. Harrassowit as its sales agents. In due course I got an off-print of Alsdorf's review published in Orientalische Literaturzeitung (the eminent Journal dealing with new and scientific publications on oriental literary subjects) and Schubring wrote to say that Harrassowitz had informed him hat the first order for a copy of my work had been received by them from a lady in the U.S.A. Schubring added humourously that he wondered who that American lady could be who was interested in such a dry subject as Jainism. Schubring also desired me to send him a list of names of scholars and libraries in India to whom I would like to send copies and that the Seminar would do it at its own cost.
At the end of my term in Prague I returned to Hamburg in May 1938 and started working with Schubring on some unpublished Jaina non-canonical texts dealing with monastic regulations, as desired by him—the result of my work was published in the Indian Historical Quarterly, 1941. I also took a course with him on the Rock Edicts of Asoka and on Comparative Philology; at the end of the latter course he said with characteristic modesty that I should have asked not him but Professor Meyer-Benfey for that course. Schubring appointed me a Lektor in Bengali but no student offered for it. Ultimately a young German missionary wanted to learn Oriya and fortunately I knew the language fairly well and taught him.
During my two summer vacations in Prague I had travelled extensively through Austria, Hungary, Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, France, Luxemburg, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, where I had met several Indologists and Orientalists, and Schubring was interested to hear from me reports of my conversations with them. As he listened to me, he made occasional humorous remarks, sometimes at my expense and sometimes at those learned scholars'. He was also fond of cracking jokes at his own expense.
Then came the drak days of the September 1938 Crisis in international relations, owing to which we all had to cancel our summer