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IX
The late thirties and early forties had witnessed a rumble in the tiny Nirgranthist world in India when a series of articles had began with Dr. Jain's "Tattvārtha-bhāsyaaur Akalanka" (Hindi). He was vehemently attacked for his findings, to which his polite but precise and firm response followed; next came counter-responses charged with stronger blows. Then came his own replies exhibiting fortitude and fine reasoning and this went on for some time, the battles fought on the leaves of the Anekānta, the Jaina Satya Prakāśa, and the Jaina Siddhanta Bhaskara, indeed till 1942 when he was jailed in the wake of Freedom Movement. (He was a staunch nationalist and an indefatigable freedom fighter). A couple of decades ago, when I first came across those articles, I was as much pained by the intolerance of Dr. Jain's opponents as was convinced by the truthfulness of his stand and soundness of his evidence. I, moreover, had noticed the transparency, impartiality, and impassionate tone of his writings. I then and then had tesolved to work out an article defending his position and conclusions, adding my own observations. However, there were a few gaps in the sequence of the copies I earlier had obtained of the articles of the series concerned. When I intimated to him about my intention of writing a review in retrospect and requested him to provide me with the copies of the missing articles, he readily agreed and next sent to me the wanting material. (I had intended to include that article in the present number of the Nirgrantha which is dedicated to him, but, it being pretty long and complex, could not be finished on time. I now hope to publish it in the next number.) One other important research he had done was in regard to the correct interpretation of the âgamic narrative of the Naigamesa myth in the context of the birth of Arhat Vardhamāna. He had sent it to be included in the special Volume commemorating the 2500th year of the Nirvāņa of Jina Mahāvīra. The article had gone through the proofs stage but then was rejected on the plea that it may offend the Believers. Of course, the Faithful never allow, nor can they tolerate a writing which goes against the established beliefs. But this piece of writing was based on sound scientific evidence and could have been allowed to be included in that Volume where arresting articles such as by Prof. Klaus Bruhn, Dr. Buddha Prakash, and a few other scholars had appeared. (We have now decided to include it in the future issue of the Nirgrantha.) In one of our meetings I had requested Prof. Jain to write a Foreword to the Mantungācārya aur unke Stotra (Hindi) wherein Jitendra Shah and I had critically reviewed the earlier writings on this interesting subject. Unfortunately, in haste, an unedited version (and that too without proper proof-reading) went to him for his write up. The result was a disaster ! He was very critical on the language-errors, also on the inclusion therein of words from other languages (particularly the Arabic and Persian as used in common Urdu parlance), as also on the stand we had taken in our criticism (and thus indirectly on some of the conclusions we had drawn.) His main objections were these : 1) We had used some words not in currency in Hindi; 2) The Nāgarī rendering of the portion 'Hermann' as 'Harman' (64) in Dr. Jacobi's appellation. Knowing German
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