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(3)
7 June 1930.
209
Dear Acharya Vijaya Indrasuri,
I have duly received your kind and welcome letter dated from Bangalore city on the 30th March 1930. It took the letter two months to reach me. I was immensely pleased in getting again some direct news from you. I vividly recollect those unforgetful days when I visited your great saint and predecessor Shri. Vijaya Dharma Suri and have had the privilege of enjoying your hospitality. From Professor Sylvain Levi and his wife I have had a direct information of the last days and the glori ous Nirvana of your Acharya. I am very glad you approve of my Nirvana Book. The problem of the Jaina Nirvana has also attracted my attention and I have privately discussed the matter with Professor H. Jacobi. during my stay in Bonn in Germany. But we could not arrive any hard and fast line concerning the Jaina theory of the Liberated Soul. It is supposed to rise higher and higher and to abide eternally in those spheres where the element of dharma is finished and the element of adharma (no motion) begins. Bnt what is the condition of the liberated soul, is it active or is it quite passive? You remember my results in Hinayana Buddhism and in early Nyaya Nirvāna is absolute calm and passivity, in Mahāyāna and Vedanta it is living and active. What is the position of Jainism in regard of these two opposed theories, does Jainism reject both or if it rejects them only partially, what line of argumentation is followed? I am sorry to say that I do not possess any copy of the Great Jaina Cyclopeadia, nor is a copy of it available in our country. I would be most thankful for every information you could give me. I am at present engaged in publishing a largetwo volumes on Buddhist Logic, the second volume will be out Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat www.umaragyanbhandar.com