Ukti Vyakti Prakarana

Author(s): Damodar Pandit
Publisher: Singhi Jain Shastra Shiksha Pith Mumbai

Page 15

SHRI BAHADUR SIN HJI Singui His numismatic collection, especially of Kushan and Gupta coins, is considered the third best in the world. He also had a good and large collection of Forks of art and historical importance. Singhiji was a Fellow of the Ryal Society of Arts (London), a member of the Royal Asätic Society of Bengal, the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad, the Indian Research Institute and a founderMember of the Bharatiya Vidya Blavan. He was also tke President of the Jain Shwetambara Conference held in Bombay in 1926. Though he had made no special study of law he was well up in the legal matters. On one occasion when he found that his lawyers were not properly representing his case he himself pljaded out the case successfully, much to the surprise of the bench and the bar who took him for an accomplished advocate.
Though a highly religious and leading figure in the Jain Community he had an outlook which was far from sectarjan. More than three fourths of the six lakhs and Cver of his donations were for non-Jain causes. More often than not he preferred to give his assistance anonymously and he did not keep a list of his donations even when they were made in his name. To the Chittaranjan Seva Sadan, Calcutta, he gave Rs. 10,000/-, when Mahatınaji liad been to his place for the collection of funds; to the Hindu Accademy, Daultapur, Rs. 15,000/-, to the Taraqi-Urdu Bangala 5000/-, the Hindi Sahitya Parishad 12,500/-, to the Vishuddhanand Sarasvati Marwari Hospital 10,000/-, several maternity homes 2,500/-, to the Benares Hindu University 2,500/-, to the liaganj High School 5000/-, to the Jiaganj London Mission Hospital 600/-, to the Jain Temples at Calcutta and Murshidabad 11,000/-, to the Jain Dharma Pracharak Sabha, Manbhum 5,000/-, to the Jain Bhavan, Calcutta, 15,000/-, to the Jain Pustak Prachar Mandal, Agra, 7,500/-, to the Agra Jain Temple 3,500/-, to the Ambala Jain High School, 2,100)-, for the Prakrit Kosh 2,500/-, and the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan 10,000/-. At the Singhi Park Mela held at his Ballyganj residence in which Viscount Wavell, then Commander-in-Chief, and Lord John Herbert, Governor of Bengal ana Lady Herbert participated, he donated Rs. 41,000/-, for the Red Cross Fund.
The people of the district of Murshidabad, his native place, will ever rem in grateful to him for having distributed several thousand maunds of rice at the low price of Rs. 8 - when rice was selling at Rs. 24/- in those terrible years of 1942-44, himself thereby suffering a loss of over three tikhs. In May-June 1944 he again spent Rs, 59,000/- for the distribution of cloth, rice and coins for the people of that place.
My close association with Singhji began in 1931, when he invited me to occupy the Chair for Jain Studies which he was starting at the Vishvabharati. Due to unfavourable climatic conditions of Shantiniketan I could not continue to work there for more than four years, but d years was founded the Singhi Jain Series. During the period of ten years of my principalship of Gujarat Puratattva Mandir, Ahmedabad, and even before that I had been collecting materials of historical and lologic. importance and folk-lore etc. which had been lying bidden in the great Jain Bhandars of Patan, Ahmedabad, Baroda etc. I persuaded Singhiji to start