Vijaydharmasuri

Author(s): A J Sunavala
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Page 80

74 VIJAYA DHARMA SŪRI AS A MONK,
approach him, feel the influence of his divine compassion. The orthodox Pandits come, and they find solace here; the heterodox religious reformers come, and they find solace here; the agnostics, the atheists, the sceptics, the materialists, and even the young collegians come, and they find solace here; all find solace and comfort in the inspiring word, in the spiritually uplifting message of the great Acharya. Hear his words to the people, words breathing out that divine compassion, which is the very birthmark of every one who comes from that great brotherhood of Sannyāsīs, the representatives and repositories of the highest Indian spiritual culture-the Sannyāsīs, not of the mere cloth, but of the heart. Again, listen to his sermons and his discourses, and there you will get his spirit, so different from that which is often shown by those who bear the name. How different is his method of teaching and preaching from the one which is being commonly pursued by many other teachers and preachers in India who, from vanity or baseless pretensions to right or merit, begin by arrogating to themselves the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and leave, with a unique impartiality and an unparalleled fairness, to their hearers and opponents the whole of the error and nothing but the error! As a preacher and a propagandist, Vijaya Dharma Sūri possesses a power of argumentation, persuasion and conciliation, which is marvellous and unparalleled. If any person's style is an index of his mind, the style of Vijaya Dharma Suri's is one. It has been said that