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A Man of Extraordinary Genius : Shri Virchand Raghavji Gandhi
Dr. Kumarpal Desai
In the World Religions Conference held in Chicago in America ninty-two years ago, the modern world of America for the first time heard the determind, spirited, ringing and chiselling sound of India Philosophy and India culture. Two Indian delegates participating in this conference awakened the western world to the spiritual heritage of India. One of these was Swami Vivekanand whose success in the World Religions Conference of Chicago is fresh in everyone's memory even today, but it was Shri Virchand Raghavji Gandhi, the representative of the Jain religion who claims equal distinction by virtue of success achieved as a religious thinker.
More than three thousand delegates of different nations and religion assembled in the religious conference that was held at Chicago in America. More than a thousand papers were read before an audience of ten thousand people on 11th September, 1983 A. D. Virchand Gandhi, Swami Vivekanand, P. C. Majmudar and such other scholars from India were present. The aim of this religious conference was to impart, to the world, knowledge of different religions and to promote fraternity between followers of one religion and another and thus to establish world peace.
The scholarship and oratory of Virchand Gandhi, the young man of twentynine, astonished everybody. He wore a long and loose shirt, a white shawl on his shoulder, a golden-bordered Kathiawadi turban on his head, and hooked country shoes. This dress bore the print of Indianness. Virchandbhai talked about the doctrines of Jainism in such a scholarly manner that some newspapers pnblished his lecture literally. He had a wonderful art of easily explaining the terminology of Jainism. He had an extrordinary ability to clarify his statements on logical basis. When he explained his points, he would give his own interpretations of the
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