Jain Journal 1976 01

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

Page 13

JANUARY, 1976
101
box producers must have been at this time in contemporary history. The whole generation of creative visionaries seems to be extinct by now. If we do not have a Puran Chand in free India, we have now a different generation of match box producers who with the rest of India have become silent onlookers of current events.
Apart from the magnificent collections in his museum, Puran Chand Nahar had another grand collection which he presented to the nation in book form. His three volumes of illustrated Jaina Inscriptions (published in 1918, 1927 and 1929 during the author's life-time) giving information of about 3000 inscriptions existing in different museums and collected from all parts of the country. This was actually a curator's work which Puran Chand did with enormous patience. He collected complete material for the fourth volume which was perhaps going to be the most important, since it contained information about inscriptions found from Kankali Tila near Mathura, which was one of the richest finds of Jaina sculpture in India, but could not see its publication through. The complete manuscript short of Introduction, which he could not write before his death in 1936, was later sent to Dr. Vasudev Saran Agarwal, curator of the Mathura Museum, for checking, since most of the inscriptions were housed in that Museum and Lucknow Museum. But before Dr. Agarwal could complete this work, he too passed away. Thus haunted by ill-luck, the fourth volume remains unpublished to this day, and, if good luck prevails, it may be possible to publish it in some form in future.
Puran Chand's magnum opus is, however, An Epitome of Jainism which is not only an encyclopaedic work on Jaina philosophy and religion but also a dependable text in comparative religion. Though Krishna Chandra Ghosh who was an erudite scholar and a very intimate friend happens to be his co-author for this work and must have rendered valuable assistance both in writing and in its production (since the book was printed in the latter's press), the major contributor on Jaina philosophy and religion was undoubtedly Puran Chand himself. Another of his useful work is Prāksta Sukta Ratnamālā which is an anthology of Prakrit verses with their English rendering. Although scholars may differ, Puran Chand did not hide his conviction when he wrote in the Introduction that instead of Sanskrit being the mother of Prakrit, it was the other way round. His logic which is almost irrefutable was that Prakrit was the spoken language of the people, from which for purposes of writing a reformed language was evolved which is Sanskrit (that is also the etymological meaning of the word "samskrta”). Besides, he produced a Hindi booklet entitled Pāvā Purīki Prācin Itihas, a book of