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Pandit Sukhlalji: The Blind Seer
B. M. SINGHI
In the death of Pandit Sukhlalji, which occurred in Ahmedabad on 2nd March 1978 when he required a little over two years to complete a century, India nay, the world has lost a great Sanskrit scholar who dominated the field of Indian philosophy and religion in general and Jain religion and philosophy in particular for the last sixty years. He had become a legendary figure in the world of letters on account of his deep insight into the old classics of Sanskrit and Prakrit. All the twentysix published works, which he had to his credit as per the list appended hereto, have been acclaimed as the treasurehouse of very valuable knowledge by the critics of very high order, whether in India or abroad. He was really a great genius. In the words of Dr. T. R. V. Murti, the erstwhile Professor of Philosophy in Banares Hindu University, "Panditji's philosophical writings on various topics and the scores of learned and critical introductions and notes to philosophical classics will stand as abiding monument to his peculiar genius and scholarship." There seems to be no other scholar who can take his place. Scholarship apart, in his life and thought he was the embodiment of all that is regarded as the best of Indian thought and culture. He was truly a living example of 'simple living and high thinking'. He practised all the Mahāvratas, expounded by Mahavira in his life. By both profession and practice, he was a true Jain-not a Jain in the narrow and sectarian sense. To quote Dr. A. N. Upadhye, "the realm of knowledge for him recognised no religious, racial, temporal and geographical barriers, and the human thought-process, as he understood it, was a continuous and connected flow." He was "human" in the truest sense-free from all sorts of dogmatism and sectarianism. He always believed in comparative study and valuation of all patterns of thought, whether of the East or of the West, which make life sublime and in drawing conclusions from the same in the broadest perspective. A man of capacious intellect and high moral character, he was a life-long seer and seeker of truth.
He was physically blind and yet was an extraordinary seer. External eyes closed, his inner eyes opened and opened widely. He could then perceive what he had not been able to see with the external eyes. He saw through his mind and heart. I vividly remember what Shri Morarji Desai, who is at present our Prime Minister, had said on Panditji's
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