Jain Journal 1970 01

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

Page 50

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JAIN JOURNAL
Calcutta, and to Vidhusekher Sastri who wrote to Pandit Sukhlalji, the eminent Jaina scholar as well, but nothing came of it all, for everywhere the problem was the money needed for the project, which alas, none could find, even in a country where there are many multi-millionaires among the Jainas themselves.
I went to Germany first on a scholarship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation obtained through Rabindranath's recommendation. Before I close this account of my life in Europe I must not omit to mention that, except for the two years spent in Prague, during the major part of the other four years spent in Hamburg, the scholarship was renewed several times by the same Foundation--perhaps I being one of the very few to be awarded it for such a long period solely on Schubring's recommendation.
In 1939 the war broke out a few months after my return to India. After the cessation of hostilities when normal conditions were fully restored in Germany and Army administration terminated, hoping that he might be alive, I wrote to Schubring and asked him for news of my other well-wishers as well. Obviously greatly touched by my letter, he replied very promptly and feelingly, saying that he was continuing his work at the University, Frau Professor was dead and so were both the Meyer-Benfeys, and Frau Fera was down with a stroke of paralysis. I wrote to Frau Fera and got a reply from her sick-bed. Shortly after my joining the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, New Delhi, in 1952 as Editor of the Indo-Asian Culture, her son communicated her death-news to me and I was able to insert an editorial note in the Journal on her life and work for foreign students.
I worked for the Indo-Asian Culture till 1962 and my correspondence with Schubring was frequent during these ten years. He was an interested reader of the Journal and contributed an article on Professor Pischel on the occasion of the latter's birth centenary at the request of Pischel's grandson. Dr. Tavadia's death by a street accident was also reported by him. Dr. Alsdorf visited Delhi twice, the second time with his wife when he was already Professor ; another of Schubring's laterday pupils, Dr. Hamm, now Professor at Bonn, did the same, and a third, Frl. Duckwitz, came as an assistant in the cultural section of the West German Embassy. With them I could refresh my memory regarding our Guru and the Seminar. Schubring wrote to me asking for some information on a west Indian religious sect of recent times,