पृष्ठ:पउमचरिउ.djvu/१७

2 SHRI BAHADUR SINGHJI SINGHI His numismatic collection, especially of Kush:n and Gupta coins, is consi- dered the third best in the world. He also had a good and large collection of works of art and historical importance. Singhiji was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (London), a member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad, the Indian Research Institute and a Founder- Member of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. He was also the President of the Jain Shwetambara Conference held in Bombay in 1926. Though he had made no special study of law he was well up in the legal matters. On one occa- sion when he found that his lawyers were not properly representing his case he himself pleaded out the case successfully, much to the surprise of the bench and the bar who took him for an accomplished advocate. Though a highly religious and leadling figure in the Jain Community he had an outlook which was far from sectarian. More than three fourths of the six lakhs and over of his donations were for non-Jain causes. More often than not hc preferred to give his assistance anonymously and lie did not keep a list of his donations even when they were niade in his name. To the Chittaranjan Seva Sadan, Calcutta, he gave Rs. 10,000/-, when Mahatınaji had been to his place for the collection of funds; to the Hindu Accademy, Daultapur, Rs. 15,000/-, to the Taraqi-Urdu Bingala 5000/-, the Hindi Sahitya Parishad 12,500/-, to the Vishuddhanand Sarasvati Marwari Hospital 10,000/-, several maternity homes 2,500/-, to the Benares Hindu University 2,500/-, to the Jiaganj High School 5000/-, to the Jiganj London Mission Hospital 600:-, to the Jain Temples at Calcutta and Murshidabad 11,000/-, to the Jain Dharma Pracharak Sabha, Manbhum 5,000/-, tu the Jain Bhavan, Calcutta, 15.000/-, to the Jain Pustak Prachar Mandal, Agra, 7,500/-, to the Agra Jain l'emplo 3,500/-, to the Ambala Jain High School, 2,100-, for the Prakrit Kosh 2,500,-, and the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan 10,000,-. At the Singhi Park Mela hell at his Ballyganj residence in which Viscount Wavell, then Commander-in-C hicſ, and Lord John Herbert, Governor of Bengal and Lady Herbert participatuid, hu donated Rs. 41,000/-, for the Red Cross Fund. The people of the district of Murshidabad, his native place, will ever remain grateful to him for having distributed several thousand maunds of rice at the low price of Rs. 8?- when rice was selling at Rs. 24- in those terrible years of 1942-41, himself therely suffering a loss of over three lakhs. In May-June 1944 he again spent Rs. 59,000/- for the distribution of cloth, rice and coins for the people of that place. My close association with Singhji began in 1931, when he invited me to occupy the Chair for Jain Studies which he was starting at the Vishvabharati. Due to unlavourable climatic conditions of Shantiniketan I could not continue to work there for more than four years, but during those years was founded thu Singhi Jain Series. During the period of ten years of my principalship of Gujarat Puratattva Mandir, Ahmedabad, and even before that I had been collecting materials of historical and philological importance and folk-lore etc. which had been lying hidden in the great Jain Bhandars of Patan, Ahmedabad, Baroda etc. I persuaded Singhiji to start