Nirgrantha-3

Author(s): M A Dhaky, Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre

Page 10

IX
sessions with him are always rewarding. His hearty full-throated laughter, concomitant hand gestures and facial mobilities, and occasional interjection of sparkling wit rendered the most serious discussions very, very lively. When asked questions, he always had ready answers. At moments he 'flared up' if something he heard was boastful or was at variance with the facts he knew, one more truly human facet of his personality. He was softspoken, but also outspoken and, for some fearless outbursts, he sometimes had paid, though he seldom worried about it. He was easily accessible since never famous as a "highbrow' academic. Indeed, vanity, one of the negative propensities of human nature, was not the ingredient of his disposition.
To us, as to the scholars in the fields of Indological researches, he always had been a great source of inspiration and support. He was a fountain of knowledge from which we could time and again drew through visits as well as consultations on phone just as correspondence, besides carefully glancing through his published writings. The only point where he differed from us was our insistence on thorough editing before printing : For printed word becomes a public property. In his view, in Indian ambience, as the matter stands and the situation prevails, serious editing is both a futility and waste of energy and time. Instead, one will be well-advised to concentrate on one's own writings and consequent productions of good standard. True, we have had in the past very hard time and still have to put in immense labour in bringing some of the papers and articles to even an optimum level of scholarly acceptability before we publish these in the Nirgrantha. Regrettably, neither at the school level the language is taught with special attention to grammar, spellings, syntax, and niceties of writing, be it one's native tongue or English, nor is it learnt at the University level where also the emphasis is very largely on the material and the methodology, style, and associated pre-requisites such as self-editing connected with preparing a research paper is usually, at times utterly, remain neglected. Teachers themselves, we frequently notice, are not particular about thoroughness. They are, in point of fact, often sloppy in their own writings. They likewise are not conscious about the need of following a style-sheet nor are worried about the qualitative aspects of research. What seemingly is of sterling importance for them is an emphasis on 'quantity, the number of papers / books published, and not on the quality of output. But we feel that, if we are to put our names as 'editors' on a journal's / book's front page, and on the other hand its fabric reflects no editing, it would imply a pretense as well as mockery of that title considered very prestigious, at least in the West. While in practical terms, Bhayani Saheb was assuredly accurate-in India in the Indological field editing is undoubtedly a thankless job-we still steadfastly follow the principles we have adopted, within of course the limitations of our personal abilities as well as the resources we command.
To this rare genius, the distinguished son of Gujarat and one of Nation's outstanding minds in the fields of learning and researches in word-histories and
Jain Education Intemational