Mohanlalji Arddhshatabdi Smarak Granth

Author(s): Mrugendramuni
Publisher: Mohanlalji Arddhashtabdi Smarak Granth Prakashan Samiti

Page 242

Muni Mabaraja Shri Mohanlalji
45 turning point of his life. The writer though then very young had the privilege of hearing his very impressive discourses and he still retains the highest regard for his simple unassuming but truly humane, holy and ideally ascetic life. Without his asking any one specially, people spent lacs of rupees for religious and charitable purposes. The richest used to wait upon him daily to learn even by mere word or hint of his pupils what would meet with his remotest desires and used to tie each other to carry out the same. The period of his life prior to 1947 was really the preparatory ground of his immense popularity in his later life which went on increasing till he died at Surat on Chaiter Vad 12th 1963 Vikrama era. During the period of 16 years from 1947 to 1963 he spent monsoon at Surat in 1948 and 1950 and at Bombay in 1951 and 1952 and stayed at Surat during the monsoons of 1955 and 1956 and again stayed in Bombay from 1957 to Magha 1963 and visited Surat last in 1963 when he departed this life. During the year 1947 he went with a sangha on pilgrimage to Satrunjaya in Palitana and stayed there during the monsoon of that year. The monsoon of 1953 he spent at Ahmedabad and that of 1954 at Patan. As a result of his preachings several Libraries and schools for religious secular educatian and charitable funds were started at Bombay, Surat, Palitana and Ahmedabad. An Industrial school also imparting religious education named Rao Saheb Jirachand Motichand Jhavery and A. S. Jayakore Udyogasala was started at Surat. There is a library and Sanskrits Pathasala established in his memory at Bombay which is even now rendering very useful services to the Jains as well as non-Jains. .
We have already described the charming personality of Sri Mohanlalji. Advertising to his Mantric powers, we apprehend that to describe particular incidents would involve mention of names of contemporaries so we would say generally that hc was believed to posses Vacanasiddhimiraculous power by which whatever he said came to pass. In or about 1930 when he was on the overskirts of Jaipur city and had to pass a night in a Jungle near a Vav (a stepwell) a tiger approached him. He thereupon stood in meditation in Kayotsarga-pose The tiger thereupon nodded his head and went away. In or about 1945 when he was at a place near Kaira, probably Matar about the month of Chaitra. a buffalo was about to be sacrificed duriug Navratra in the temple of a Hindu goddess. When pressed by the Jain Sangha