Letters to Vijayendrasuri

Author(s): Kashinath Sarak
Publisher: Yashodharma Mandir

Page 93

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I saw that he had bought for the library of the Indological Institute of our University a great many books which were no longer to be found there. It cost me an enormous amount of time and enquiry to state what books had been bought and are missing and to find out the track of the thief. The affair is not yet quite settled, but I hope that, very soon, the supsected person will be convicted of the crime, and I hope that it will be possible to get back at least some of the stolen books.
I am now, at last, able to really begin my work here. Of course I have from Easter 1919 onwards, taught sanskrit and explained sanskrit authors; but I have still to prepare my lectures on Avesta and Avestic language, and before all on Indian literature. This is a heavy task, which will take me much time, especially as my conviction very often deviates from that of the various European authors on History of Sanskrit Literature, and as I wish to give, in the course of this lecture, a true sketch of sanskrit Jain literature, and of the civilizatory work done by Jain monks and the religion they have propa gated. The task is the more difficult, as most of the students remain here only for six months in order to go, then, to some other University; and as, in these sad days, only very few students are taking any interest in sanskrit studies, the teacher never knows, whether he will have for the lectures he proposes to deliver, any students during the following half year. -second and even more serious difficulty lies in the circumstances that most of our students are utterly ignorant of things Indian in general. Hence the necessity of an introduction into Indian views. Indian culture, and Indian literary customs. If I will propagate knowlege about Jains and their literary and moral culture and to do so is my firm and earnest intention-I must first prepare my public for understanding it by introducing it into Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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