Risht Samucchaya

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

Page 19

Dalchandji Singhi, continued to lielp institutions like the Jaina Pustaka Pracăraka Mandala, Agra; the Jaina Gurukula, Palitana; the Jaina Vidyābhavana, Udaipur, etc.; and also patronized many individual scholars engaged in the publication of Jaina literature. Besides, with a view to establishing an independent memorial foundation to perpetuate the memory of his father, he consulted our common friend, Pandit Sri Sukhlalji, (formerly a Professor of Jainism in the Benares Hindu University), an unrivalled scholar of Jaina Philosopliy, wlio had also come in close contact with the late Babu Dalchandji Singhi, and whom the latter had always held in very high esteem. In the meanwhile, Babu Bahadur Singhji Singhi incidentally met the late Poet, Rabindranath Tagore, and learnt of his desire to get a chair of Jaina studies established in the Viśva Bhārati, Shantiniketan. Out of his respect for the Poet, Babu S'ri Bahadur Singhji readily agreed to found the ciiair (provisionally for three years) in revered memory of his dear father, and pressingly and cordially invited me to organize and conduct the same. I accepted the task very willingly, and felt thankful for the opportunity of spending even a few years in the cultural and inspiring atmosphere of Viśva-Bhārati, the grand crcation of the great Poet, Rabindranath.
During the period of 10 years of my principalship of the GUJARAT PURATATTVA MANDIR, Ahmedabad, and even before that period, I had begun collecting materials of historicai and philological importance, and of folk-lore etc., which had been lying hidden in the great Jaina Bhandars of Patan, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Cambay, etc. I induced my noble friend Babu Bahadur Singhji Singhi, also to start a Series which would publishi works dealing with the vast materials in my possession, and also with other allied important Jaina texts and studies prepared on the most modern scientific methods. Hence the inauguration of the present Singhi Jaina Series.
At an early age Babu Bahadur Singhji joined the family business and by pushing ahead with his father's enterprises, succeeded in making the firm the foremost in the mining industry of Bengal and Central India. Besides he also acquired vast zamindaries and had interests in many industrial and banking concerns. This early preoccupation with business aflairs prevented his having a college education. But Singhiji was