________________
Chapter 31. Religious Activities
189
Hemchandraji and Yati Shri Fulchandji arrived in Mombasa. They stayed in Kenya for several weeks. They visited various places in East Africa and Yati Shri Hemchandraji gave religious discourses. Yati Shriji was a good orator. His delivery was simple, informative, revealing and clear. Many people were so impressed that they gave up drinking alcohol, eating non-vegetarian food and many other addictions. During his visit through his encouragement many new projects were started. However for the next 25 years nothing much happened.
In July 1971 a learned ascetic Gurudev Shri Chitrabhanu came to Kenya. Most of the time he stayed in Nairobi. People were very much impressed by his religious discourses. He inspired the Nairobi community to build a domed Jain temple. I was fortunate enough to come to know him personally as he stayed at the house of my brother Keshavlal Lalji Dodhia. Since then learned Jain monks and Jain teachers visited Kenya on a regular basis as old and young people alike wanted to know more about Jain religion. While the plans for the domed temple were going on a proposal was made to build a prayer hall (upasray). The proposal was accepted. The foundation ceremony for the prayer hall was laid in 1974 and it opened in 1975.
Planning for a domed temple started in 1970 during the chairmanship of Kantilal Narshi Shah. An architect from the firm of Anandji Kalyanji in India was contacted. On August 22 1971, images of three Tirthankars -Shri Parshvanath, Shri Shanitnath and Shri Mahavir Swami were temporary installed in a specially built ghar derasar in the mahanjanwadi.
In 1974 the celebration of the auspicious event of Liberation (moksha) of Lord Mahavir was conducted on grand scale. Learned speakers, artists and musicians were invited from India who did a magnificent job in making the celebration a memorable event.
