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THE JAINA GAZETTE.
sion in which the image of Parasanathji is carried through the crowded parts of the city was several times witnessed and enjoyed by me with no other curiosity than the one excited by the annual car festival of our Jagannathji. This was my early attitude towards what is held sacred by our Jaina brothers. Perhaps there would have been no change in the attitude till now. But fortunately I was called away from Bengal to a place where by personal contact with real Jaina students there came a change in the attitude. I found, for the first time, that here was a faith some what different from ours. Still there was nothing like an intellectual sympathy with the faith at the time. I was then invited by some Jaina students of mine to visit Sonepat an ancient and established home of Digambaras. The magnificient collection of manuscripts at the Jaina temple aroused my curiousity and admiration for this ancient faith of India among other faiths. The result was a strong desire in me to learn something of the literature that belonged to the cult. The desire remained unfulfilled, however, until I came over to Benares Here, for the first time, I came into direct touch with Jainism in the person of the reverend saint, the late Acharya Vijaya Dharma Suri, who happened to be in Benares. And a heartfelt tribute is due to the memory of my friend, the late Mahamahopadhyaya Satish Chandra Vidyabhushan, who has done so much for the history of Jaina Logic, for my introduction to the venerable presence of the departed sage. Many were the happy occasions on which we met and discussed philosophical subjects, myself standing for the west and he for the east. I now feel deeply sorry that I did not make the best of these meetings by studying at his feet some literature of the faith, in which he was so vastly learned.' But the inspiration I received from him was not to be lost. When he was gone, and gone for good, from Benares, I commenced what may be called real study of the literature. I am still a student of it, and the more I am studying the more interested I am becoming in the unique position of the philosophy and religion which that literature represents. This is my personal explanation. It will now be for you to judge of my fitness for the exalted position in which you are placing me.
I have already referred in a by-way to the ancientry of Jainism, Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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