Risht Samucchaya

Author(s): Durgadevacharya, A S Gopani
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

Page 18

well-known for his liberality and large-heartedness, though he always fought shy of publicity attached to charitable acts and often remained anonymous while feeding the needy and patronizing the poor. A few instances of his liberality are given below.
When Mahatma Gandhi personally visited his place in 1926, for a contribution to the Chittaranjan Seva Sadan, Babu Dalchandji Singhi gladly handed over to him a purse of Rs. 10,000.
His War contribution in the first world-war consisted in his purchasing War Bonds to the value of Rs. 3,00,000; and his contribution at the Red Cross Sales, held in March 1917, under the patronage of H. E. Lord Carmichael on Government House
ounds, Calcutta, amounted to approximately Rs. 21,000, in which he paid Rs. 10,000 for one bale of jute which he had himself contributed. His anonymous donations are stated to have amounted to many lacs.
In his private life Babu Dalchandji Singhi was a man of extremely simple and unostentatious habits. Plain living and high thinking was his ideal. Although he had been denied a long academic career, his knowledge, erudition and intellectual endowments were of a very high order, indeed. His private studies were vast and constant. His attitude towards life and the world was intensely religious, and yet he held very liberal views and had made a synthetic study of the teachings of all religions. He was also well.versed in the Yoga-darśana. During the latter part of his life he spent his days mostly in pilgrimage and meditation. Noted throughout the district and outside for his devoutness, kindness and piety, he is remembered even now as a pride of the Jaina community.
During the last days of his life, Babu Dalchandji Singhi cherished a strong desire to do something towards encouraging research in important branches of Jaina literature and publishing their editions scientifically and critically prepared by eminent scholars. But fate had decreed otherwise; and before this purpose of his could become a reality, he expired.
However, Babu BAHADUR SINGHJI SINGHI, worthy son of the worthy father, in order to fulfil the noble wish of the late