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33. Mooni Shri Santbalji
Introduction: The ruling section of India has always been respecting saints and sadhus. The rulers ruled on the basis of truth, non-violence and justice. The saints on the other hand gave voice of the poor, illiterate, and tribal people living pitiable life. They guide and preach them for their well being. The saints should be helpful to such people in improving their plight. This was the belief of Mahatma Gandhi and the famous Jain mendicant of Gujarat Mooni Shri Santbalji was an exclusive person of the 20th century to follow this principle in his life.
Birth and Childhood: Mooni Shri Santbalji was born in 1904 at village Tol of Morbi Taluka where Shrimad Rajchandra and Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati were also born. He was a prestigious family with good culture. The village Tol is about four miles away from Tankara. His childhood name was Shivial and Shri Nagjibhai and Shrimati Motiben were his parents. He had received the culture of service to others, devotion and honesty from his parents as also from his maternal relatives. His father died when he was only of five years of age and hence he studied up to standard seven at the maternal house of his mother where the homely atmosphere was of devotion to God and prayers. He went to Mumbai to earn money so as to help his mother when he was only thirteen years of age. He took employment at the monthly salary of Rs. 35/- in a firm named F.K. Modi and Sons. He won the heart of his Parsi employer by his honest, sincere, skillful and punctual services. But then he began to work in another firm for the monthly salary of Rs. 150/- for the reason of on of his Muslim friends. The new employer had total trust in Shivlal and decided to make him a partner in the firm. But the mind of Shivlal was longing for the company of saints. In these days, the Jain mendicant Shri Nanchandraji who had adopted the thinking of Mahatma Gandhi happened to be at Mumbai. His lectures were directed to consolidate the thinking of Lord Mahavir and Mahatma Gandhi in doing religious activities. Hearing these lectures, Shivlal was moved to adopt Dixa. He thought to adopt Dixa after the death of his mother with the consent of his sister and other relatives. There was prohibitive act on granting of Dixa by Jain mendicants but the king of Morbi was present to hear the preachings of Shri Nanchandraji and being deeply affected by the words of Shri Nanchandraji, he lifted this ban and then Shivlal was granted Dixa in 1929 in the presence of thousands of Jains and non-Jains. Shivlal was now Mooni Shri Saubhagya Chandra. He became an ardent disciple of Shri Nanchandraji Maharaj. He later became famous as Santbal.
Study of Scriptures: Within five years of his Dixa he studied languages Sanskrit, Prakrit, English, Hindi etc and scriptures on Nyaya, Praman, Tark and literature. He studied several scriptures of Jainism as also important religious of the world. He studied so deeply and yet quickly that several learned persons as also his teacher mendicant Nanchandraji were surprised. He also became ShataVadhani (one who remembers one hundred verses at a time. The learned persons of India at Ajmer conference gave him title of Bharat Ratna. Because of his ability to remember many things at a time, he studied and thought on serious issues of Jain scriptures and gave vast literature to Gujarati Samaj within the years 1933 to 1938. He converted the four scriptures-Uttaradhyayan, Dashvaishalik, Acharang and Avashyak into simple and effective Gujarati language and published them through the Mahavir Prakashan Mandir-a publication house. He presented the first two scriptures in the form of poetry under the title Sadhak Sahachari. In his last years, he translated Tattvarth Sootra in Gujarati poetic form and tried to place the original
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