________________ 488 Homage to Vaisali . Second, being located in a village, the Institute has an entirely rural environment, quite peaceful and congenial to serious and sustained studies. Here, in unpretentious surroundings', 'away from the din and bustle of city life....... the depth of spirit is being probed into in solitude.'2 Actually, the sponsors of the Institute wished to make it a link between the highest scholarship on the one hand and life as lived by the common people in the remote villages of India on the other. Research institutes and universities have in the past been established in big towns and cities, but they have been characterised by an almost complete divorce from the life of the masses, and have sometimes encouraged an attitude of mind not altogether responsive to the needs of a free nation. In the circumstances, the sponsors wished to make this Prakrit Institute a nucleus of a Rural University. They also felt that its teachers and students would endeavour to carry the message of learning and higher thought among the villagers in the neighbourhood and at the same time organize constructive activities for the social and economic amelioration and cultural revival of these people. 4 This is why, the Institute was launched in the interior village-surroundings with a potentiality of a worthy centre of learning. Third, it is the first institution of higher education of its kind in the country and has been a pioneer in the field of Prakrit and Jain learning. Prakrit studies all over the country have almost been. manned by the alumni of this Institute. Dr. Jogendra Chandra Sikdar, ex-Research Officer, Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Institute, Ahmedabad; Dr. Nemi Chandra Shastri, ex-Head, Department of Sanskrit & Prakrit, H. D. Jain College, Arrah (Bihar) and Dr. K. K. Dixit of Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Institute. Ahmedabad have been the alumni of this Institute. At present, Department of Prakrit & Sanskrit, Jabalpur University is headed by Professor Vimal Prakash Jain, Department of Prakrit Language in the School of Lapguages in Gujarat University by Dr. K. R. Chandra, Department of Jainology in the Punjabi University, Patiala by Dr. Atul Nath Sinha 1. Dr. Zakir Hussain, Governor of Bibar, in his letter to the Direc tor of the Prakrit Jain Institute, quoted in Research Institute of Prakrit, Jainology and Ahimsa, Calendar, 1955-1960, Muzaffarpur, 1961, p. 101. 2. Remark of Dr. S. Bhattacharya, Head, Department of Sanskrit, Banaras Hindu University, quoted in Research Institute of Pras krit, Jainology and Ahimsa, Calendar, 1960-1975, Vaishali, p. 87. 3. The Vaisali Sangba brochure of 1952, p. 4. 4. Ibid., p. 11.
