________________
Before You Proceed
As early as 1987, it was decided to have an Institute under the auspicious name of KundaKundacharya, for research in Jainism and to provide facilities for Digambar Jain Community in it. But I was beset with the problem of choosing the qualified people to run the Institute.
After a few trials, without much difficulty, I could pick up a man from Distt. Rajgarh who was teaching Mathematics in Govt. college, Sarangpur (Rajgarh). I was impressed by his initial talk about his plans in promoting research. He is Dr. Anupam Jain. He now holds the charge of Secretary of Kunda- Kunda Jnanapitha. I want to record here that under his Editorship, we had recently completed the 9th year of the regular publication of our quarterly Journal “Arhat Vacana."
Again, eversince the inception of Kunda-Kunda Jnanapitha, I was also in the 'lookout' for an archaeologist. I felt, it was absolutely necessary, as Madhya Pradesh has plently of Jain temples and the loose sclulptures of Tirthankaras were getting into unauthorised hands for sale and profit. In this aspect, I asked Dr. Anupam Jain to procure the services of an Archaeologist to whom facilities could be provided in the Institute itself. Unfortunatly with all our trials, we were not able to make much headway.
Once during a telephonic talk with my relative Sri Jayachandji Lohade, Hyderabad, I was informed that Dr. T.V.G. Sastri the Director of Birla Archaeological & Cultural Research Institute had done some work in Jain research and that he discovered and ancient Jain site in Andhra Pradesh. I asked him to contact Dr. Sastri if he would be prepared to work in Indore. Finally it was our good fortune that we could get his services.
As soon as Dr. Sastri joined us as Director, Archaeology, I took him to Gwalior to study the Jain caves. His preliminary report was already published in our journal 'Arhat Vacana.'
Now the present Report on Gopachal is the outcome of the efforts of several people. Initially we recruited one Shri P. Kishore of Vikram University, Ujjain to assist Dr. Sastri, somehow he left us after a few months.
Shri Kanwar Jain is another who joined our institute for this work. He made photographic documentation and prepared the Albums of the caves of Gopachal. In the final stages, Shri Rajendrakumar Singh, a member of Kunda-Kunda Jnanapitha, Executive Committee had taken the initiative to help us in the photographic work of the caves and the surrounding related sites.
(V)
