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Lalwani, late Dr. A. N. Upadhye and Dr. D. S. Kothari, Shri Nawalmalji Firodia, Shri Popatlalji Shah, Shri Kanakmal Munot, Shri Shreyansprasad Jain, Shri Lalchand Hirachand, revered Shri Pushkarmuni, revered Shri Devendramuni and revered Shri Arunvijayaji Muni, the chair in Jaina Philosophy, Culture and Literature could be established in Poona University. The encouragement given to me by Dr. G. S. Mahajani and Prof. D. A. Dabholkar who were during this period Vice-Chancellors of the University played a major role in the establishment of the Chair.
The seminars held in 1975, 1977 and 1979, the proceedings of which are being published now, were a part of this process. I thought that if learned pandits were closeted together for a few days they might be able to churn out the truth. We, of course, received for these seminars many learned articles; but most o them were written in traditional idiom. There is always a danger of philosophy becoming pedantic and scholastic, and our seminars could not break this routine, in fiull measure.
We were long eager to publish the proceedings of the seminars, but they had to wait for various reasons. Now thanks to the efforts of Prof. M. P. Marathe, Dr. Pradeep Gokhale and Dr. (Mrs) Meena Kelkar, the tapes were transcribed and finally some of the talks assumed the form of papers.
The proceedings of these Seminars are being published under the title "Studies in Jainism and are divided into three parts. The first part contains papers on metaphysics and ontology, the second is concerned with logic and epistemology and the third with Jaina ethics. Although some of these papers are presented only in the traditional way I am sure that they at least supply the data for further thought. In the first part are included papers by Prof. M. L. Mehta, Dr. J. C. Sikdar. Dr. Suzuko Ohira, Dr. Sagarmal Jain, Dr. Nagin Shah, Dr. Ramji Singh and Prof. M. P. Marathe. All these papers cover subjects dealt in Jaina metaphysics and ontology. The second part is concerned with Jaina epistemology and logic and contains papers from Shri Darbarilal Kothiya, Dr. V. K. Bhardwaj, Prof. M. P. Marathe, Prof. S.L. Pandey, Dr. Sagarmal Jain, Shri Kailashchandra Shastri and Shri Ishwarchandra Sharma. In the third part are included important papers on Jaina ethics by Prof. D. S. Kalghatgi, Prof. K. C. Sogani and Prof. D. D. Malvania.
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