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A DEDICATED SOUL
SHRI K. D. KORA
The wise dictum that "The greatest saint is not the man who does extraordinary things, but does ordinary things extraordinarily has been realized in the life of Acarya Vijayavallabhasûri, whose sixty-eight years' service to the cause of education and Jainism has but few parallels in our history.
'Uplift through education' was the central message of the life of this illustrious saint, whose searching intelligence and ardent nature urged him to find out the panacea for the younger generation to keep off from the stifling atmosphere which would overpower them any day. Gifted with a prophetic vision, he foresaw the shape of things to come at a time when education was regarded as a taboo and foreign travel led to excommunication. These views were labelled ideological by some and retrograde flounderings by others, when he propounded the gospel of education. This concept was not the rebellion of a solitary soul but the outcome of a social conflict and a future vision of the society. This was a drop in the sea of mankind but the people felt in it the roar of the sea and its heave and swell were realized many years later, as we do visualize now very clearly.
Acarya Vijayavallabhasüri, who hailed from Baroda, became the dis ciple of Śrīmad Vijayanandasŭri, popularly known as Atmārāmji, seventy years ago, and since then Acaryaśrī led the disciplined life of a Jaina sadhu, with an outlook which was in tune with the spirit and demand of our age.
ATMARAMJI-THE GURU
Atmārāmji was an ardent student of Jainism in all its myriad manifestations and implications. The education and training which he imparted to the young Vijayavallabhavijayaji stood the latter in good stead, when he was called upon to interpret and explain the tenets of Jainism. So great was the popularity of Atmärämji that he was invited to the World Faiths Conference in the United States to represent Jainism. He deputised Shri Virchand Gandhi, the famous scholar of Jainism, who persuasively propounded the ethical code of Jainism, which is based on non-violence, truthfulness, non-possession and penance, ideas very much
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