YJ International Newsletter 2004 Vol 18 No 02

Author(s): Young Jains (UK)
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 12

GURUDEV SHREE KANJI SWAMI
By Narendra Shah First published in April-June 1999 issue of Young Jains International Nowsletter
"...Please try and understand. No soul, with or without
knowledge, has the slightest prowess to move even a particle. In such circumstances, how can it do anything to the human body, or to any other thing for that
matter?..."
Gurudev Shree Kanji Swami
Scriptures) including a deep analysis of several hundred verses. Being a believer in purushaarth (personal effort) for achieving emancipation, he quickly became a learned and famous monk and, backed by his seventeen
istory is punctuated by exclamatory events and the most successful twentieth century event for the Gujarati Jains has been the Kanji
Swami movement. Born to a Sthanakvaasi family in Umrala, a small village in Kathiawar region of Gujarat in India in 1889, Kanji Swami showed great capacity for learning and was usually at the top of the class at school. Once at the age of II, when returning from the Jainshala, he saw a Jain Muni (monk) walking along the road and observed, "What a majestic way of walking with a total abandonment of worldly affairs. Absolutely alone and completely submerged in his innermost confidence of freedom". Even when he was still at school he never felt satisfied with the education and deep within him felt this is not what I am searching for.
...a learned and famous monk ... came to be known as the 'Kohinoor of Kathiawar...'
renditions of the Bhagvati Sutra with its 100,000 verses, came to be known as the "Kohinoor of Kathiawar' (Jewel of Kathiawar). But all this time he could never completely engage with the scriptures he was studying and continued his search for the still evasive Truth.
His mother Ujamba died when he was 13 and he lost his father Motichandbhai when he was 17, after which he joined his father's shop in Palej. He spent the frequent periods of lull in the shop reading various books on religion and spirituality. Turning down the many offers of betrothal, he confided in his brother
Then around 1921 he came upon Acharya Kundkund's Samaysaar - 'Essence of the Doctrine'- the study of which was like drinking the nectar of Truth' for him. He followed on by studying the writings of other Digambars such as Todermaal and Shrimad Rajchandra. During his discourses he began to incorporate the ideas picked from these studies and began to lead a kind of double life, nominally a Sthanakvaasi monk but referring to the Digambar literature. His assertions that 'vows, giving and fasting were ultimately worthless if performed without any understanding of the soul' did not endear him to the Sthanakvaasi community.
... Absolutely alone and completely submerged in his innermost confidence of
freedom...'
that he wanted to remain celibate and take up dikshaa (renunciation).
Eventually he took dikshaa as a Sthanakvaasi monk in 1914 at the hands of Shri Hirachandji Maharaj. During the ceremony, while riding on an elephant, he inauspiciously tore his robe, which was later to prove an ill omen in his monastic career. He embarked upon a rigorous study of the Shwetamber scriptures and finished a detailed study of the 45 Agams (ain
This was all to lead to a great turmoil in his life and in the lives of his followers. He began experiencing distress about his own self and about his behaviour as a Sthanakvaasi monk. This came to a head at the small town of Songadh on Mahavir Jayanti day in 1934, when he formally removed his Muhapatti, left the Sthanakvaasimonk-hood and proclaimed to be a Digambar layman. Even though he had some devotees, the Sthanakvaasi community was understandably
Your are pure, enlightened, charged consciousness, self-illuminating, the abode of bliss. What more is there to say? Become
attentive and you will attain all this. - Atma Siddhi, Gatha 117 Jain Education International For Person 12 Private Use Only