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THE GREAT ACARYA
SHRI CHIMANLAL J. SHAH, M.A.
Among the great Jaina Acaryas of the last fifty years, the late Vijayavallabhasŭri enjoys a very prominent and popular place. He was a favourite with both the old and new generations of the Jaina laity.
The key to his popularity lay in his earnest desire to see that the laity was helped spiritually and otherwise. He led the austere life of a Jaina sädhu carrying out all the injunctions prescribed by the scriptures. Thus the orthodox mind saw nothing in him that would discredit him but at the same time, he talked and preached about anything and everything that would go under the name of welfare activities for the betterment of the Jaina Samgha. For more than half a century, he carried on a crusade in his inimitable way for the educational and social uplift of his followers. If he had been an educationist himself or in the alternative if he had had a band of experts by his side, one does not know what wonders he would have worked. In reality, the net result of all his educational and social activities was limited. All the same, the new generation of unorthodox outlook was always happy with him and appreciated all his laudable efforts.
This flair for activities outside the ritualistic life of a Jaina sädhu he inherited from his great Guru Atmårämjt. Both seemed to believe that it was no use merely preaching religion to a Samgha that was socially and psycologically not prepared to receive it. In economic parlance, it meant first bread and butter, the wherewithal to get the same, and then religion. An understanding and a happy mind can alone absorb and live upto the great tenets of the Jaina philosophy and to create that was the life work of the great Acarya.
This great divine joined the order at the early age of sixteen and became the disciple of the illustrious Vijayanandasûri, popularly known as Atmärämji. For a period, as long as sixty-eight years, since he donned the yellow garb, Vijayavallabhasüri ceaselessly and enthusiastically carried on his efforts for the welfare and uplift of his followers and of all those who came in contact with him. This by itself is a record, a
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