Risht Samucchaya

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

Page 23

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Viśvabhārati for the studies of Jain cult in deference to the wishes of the late Poet Rabindranath Tagore. But unfortu. nately I was forced to leave this very inspiring and holy place on account of unfavourable climatic conditions etc. which I had to face during my stay of about four years there. I shifted, therefore, from Viśvabhārati to Ahmedabad where I had formerly resided and worked in those glorions days when the GûJARAT VIDYAPITH and the PURĀTATTVA MANDIR had been established as a part of the movement for national awakening and cultural regeneration, I went there in the hope that the reminiscences of those days and the proximity of those places would serve as sources of inspiration in my literary pursuits.
During this period my aim of life ad centred round the Singhi Jain Series and I devoted every iota of my energy to its development and progress.
In Junc, 1938, I received, to my agreeable surprise, a letter from my esteemed friend Sri K. M. Munshi-who was, then, the Home Minister of the Congress Ministry of the Bombay Presidency. In that letter he lead mentioned that Sheth Sri Mugalal Goenka bad placed a liberal sum of two lacs of rupees at his disposal for the establislıment of a good academic institution for Indological studies and he had asked me to come down to Bombay to discuss and prepare a scheme for that. Accordingly, I came here and saw Muushiji. Knowing that he had a servent desire of founding at Bombay an institution of the type of the Purātattva Mandir, I was extremely delighted and I slowed my cagerness to offer for that such services as might be possible for me. We, then, began to draft out a scheme and after some deliberations and exchange of ideas the outline of the BHARATIYA VIDYA BHAVAN was settled. Accordingly, on the auspicious full moon day of the Kārttik of 1995 (V.S.) the opening ceremony of the Bhāratiya Vidyā Bhavan took place amidst the clappings and rejoicings of a magnificent party which was arranged at the residence of Munshiji. The brilliant achievement and the wide publicity which the Bhavan has been able to secure during his last five or Six years' short period bear eloquent testimony to the inexhaustible fund of energy and unsurpassed skill of Munshiji. As I am inseparably linked up with it from the very conception,