Book Title: Comparative and Critical Study of Mantrashastra
Author(s): Mohanlal Bhagwandas Jhaveri, K V Abhayankar
Publisher: Sarabhai Manilal Nawab
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SUBSEQUENT MANTRIKAS : MUNI MAHARAJA SRI MOHANLALJI
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Without his asking anyone specially, people spent lacs of rupees for religious and charitable purposes. The richest used to wait upon him daily to learn even by a mere word or hint of his pupils what would meet with his remotest desires and used to vie with each other to carry out the same. The period of his life prior to 1947 was really the preparatory ground for his immense popularity in his later life which went on increasing till he died at Surat on Chaiter Vad 12th 1963 Vikrama era. During the period of 16 years from 1947 to 1963 he spent monsoons at Surat in 1948 and 1950 and at Bombay in 1951 and 1952 and stayed at Surat during the monsoons of 1955 and 1956 and again stayed in Bombay from 1957 to Māgha 1963 and visited Surat last in 1963 when he departed this life. During the year 1949 he went with a Sangha on pilgrimage to Satrunjaya in Pālitāņā and stayed there during the monsoon of that year. The monsoon of 1953 he spent at Ahmedabad and that of 1954 at Patan. As a result of his preachings several Libraries and schools for religious and secular education and charitable funds were started at Bombay, Surat, Pālitānā and Ahmedabad. An Industrial school also imparting religious education named Rao Saheb Hirāchand Motichand Jhavery and A. S. Jayakore Udyogaśālā was started at Surat. There is a library and Sanskrta Pāthaśālā established in his memory at Bombay which is even now rendering very useful services to the Jains as well as non-Jains.
We have already described the charming personality of Sri Mohanlalji. Adverting to his Māntric powers, we apprehend that to describe particular incidents would involve mention of names of contemporaries so we would say generally that he was believed to possess Vacanasiddhi-miraculous power by which whatever he said came to pass. In or about 1930 when he was on the outskirts of Jaipur city and had to pass a night in the Jungle near a Vāv (a stepwell) a tiger approached him. He thereupon stood in meditation in Kayotsarga-pose. The tiger thereupon nodded his head and went away. In or about 1945 when he was at a place near Kaira, probably
