Baba Bhagirath Varni, a Jain Scholar

-By Prof. Yashwant Malaiya

Baba Bhagirath Varni was born in 1868 at Mathura and entered samadhi-marana in 1942 CE at Isari in Bihar.

I remembered having read about him in the biography of Kshullak Ganesh Prasad Varni (1874-1961), but had not thought about him. Kshullak Ganesh Prasad Varni is regarded to be a pioneer in the Jain society, responsible for an awakening, though study of ancient texts, establishement of schools.

It turns out that Baba Bhagirath Varni was a major inspiration to Kshullak Ganesh Prasad Varni. The Jain scholars of that generation, when India was still a slave nation, laid the foundation of the Jain institutions today.

Ganesh Prasad Varni was born in the Asati community [2] and Bhagirath Varni was born in the Jat community.

Today Kshullak Ganesh Prasad Varni is remembered for his autobiography "Meri Jivan Gatha", sections of which are sometimes quoted in Jain magazines. Prof. Ravindra K Jain in his "The universe as audience: metaphor and community among the Jains of North India" wrote a whole chapter using it.

The lectures of Ganesh Prasad Varni were recorded and then transcribed They are avaialble on the web. Unfortunately tape-recorders were not that common during earlier, and thus we don't have recordings of Baba Bhagirath Varni.

I am still looking for the written works of Baba Bhagirath Varni. I have seen references to some of his writings, but I think they need to searched in some of the libraries.

He was a senior friend of Ganesh Prasad Varni. It was Baba Bhagirath Varni who helped set Ganesh Prasad Varni on his path.

Kshullak Ganesh Prasad Varni writes about him:

"..Such a fearless tyagi are rare today. Since he became a bramhachari, he has not touched money. He had given up salt and sugar for life. .. Everyday he used to read Kartikanupreksha and Samayasara. .. His shastra-pravachana used to be very influential. The Syadvad-Vidyalaya was founded with his help and encouragement..."

Here is the story I have read in a book.

Both Bhagirath Varni and Ganesh Varni wanted to study nyaya (logic). They went to a famous Brahmin scholar Jivanath Shastri in Banaras, with two Jain nyaya texts - Prameya-Ratna-mala and Apta-Pariksha with them. They offered Rupee 1 as initial dakhina, and urged Shatriji to teach them from those books.

The Shastri, noting the texts belonged to the Jain tradition, became angry. He threw the dakshina and the books away and said: "I don't even touch such texts".

Stunned, the two returned to the dharmashala where they were staying. In the same dharmashala, a Lala Jhammanlal of Mathura was staying. Hearing their story, he donated them a rupee.

Then a postcard used to cost 1 paisa, and rupee was worth 64 paise. They purchased 64 postcards and sent them to potential donors urging support for establishing a Jain center of learning in Banaras.

Here is the rest of the story.

They received several positive replies, among them an offer from Babu Devkumar of Araah who offered them the use of the dharmashala of Bhadaini as a site.

They successfully established Syadvad-Vidyalaya at Banares which eventually became a major center of Jain learning, said to be comparable in impact to the Aligarh University for the Muslims. Baba Bhagirath Varni served as the initial "Superintendent" (that was the title used for the main administrator. Ganesh Prasad Varni want on to establish the institutions such as Sattark-Sudha-Tarangini at Sagar, where he served for several years.

Notes:
[1] "Varni" means Brahmachari. It is incidentally also used for the founder for Swaminarayan Sampradaya who was known as Nilkanth Varni at one time. Kshullak means a junior monk. Kshullak Ganesh Prasad Varni has become a full monk just before his death.

[2] A trader community in Bundelkhand. It is counted as one of the communites with "Jain lagaar" i.e. with a "touch" of Jainism, in Vardhamana Purana of Navalsah Chanderia (1769 CE).

Colette Caillat

Colette Caillat 1921 - 2007

Prof Dr.Colette CAILLAT started with classical studies in Latin and Greek, being particularly interested by grammatical and linguistic aspects. She was then almost naturally led to the study of Sanskrit, which she studied with Prof. Louis Renou (1896-1966), and Prof. Jules Bloch (1880-1953) when he replaced Renou who was in India. Although the main subject was Sanskrit, the tastes and special interests of Jules Bloch led him to entertain the students about Pali, Prakrit, Apabhramsha, modern Indo-Aryan languages, and about so many details of Indian life (the presence of Indian students in the class encouraged him to do so).

As was expected from those who passed the prestigious competitive examination known in France as "Agrégation", Mme Caillat was teaching at the same time in various secondary schools, until she could find a post at the National Centre of Scientific Research. She was then free to devote full time to Indian studies, starting with a Mémoire on nominal derivation in Middle Indian which led her to read Jain texts. Since nobody in France was proficient in these texts, Renou addressed her to Prof. Walther Schubring (1881-1969) in Hamburg. This was a decisive meeting for the subsequent years: Schubring led her firmly on the path of Jain studies and encouraged her to participate in the Critical Pali Dictionary. In India, which she visited for the first time in 1963, she had established close contacts with Prof. A.N. Upadhye, Pandit D.D. Malvania, Prof. H.C. Bhayani, Pandit Sukhlalji and Muni Punyavijayaji. She worked several times in Mysore and in Ahmedabad, at the L.D. Institute of Indology, a place she continued to visit regularly over the years.

Mme Caillat first taught Sanskrit and Comparative grammar at the University of Lyon (1960-1966). She was appointed at Sorbonne University (then University of Paris-3) in 1967, as the successor of Louis Renou who had died suddenly, and taught there until 1988, when she retired. She was elected a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1987. She was a member of several academies and scholarly associations.

Her contribution to the field of Jain studies and Middle Indo-Aryan linguistics is manifold. Apart from a number of articles, her main books are the following:

1965 Les expiations dans le rituel ancien des religieux jaina, Paris, 1965 (D.Litt. thesis), translated into English as Atonements in the Ancient Ritual of the Jaina Monks, Ahmedabad, 1975 (L.D. Series 49).
1966 Drei Chedasûtras des Jaina-Kanons - Ayâradasâo, Vavahâra, Nisîha. Bearbeitet von Walther Schubring. Mit einem Beitrag von Colette Caillat, Hamburg, 1966.
1971 Candâvejjhaya, La Prunelle-cible. Introduction, Edition critique, Traduction, Commentaire, Paris, 1971.
1974-75 C. Caillat, A.N. Upadhye and Bal Patil, Jainism, Delhi, 1974-75. New edition, 2006.
1981 La cosmologie jaina. Présentation de Colette Caillat d'après les documents recueillis par Ravi Kumar, Paris, 1981. The Jain Cosmology. English rendering by K.R. Norman, New Delhi; revised and enlarged edition, New Delhi, 2004.
1985 Edition of Recueil d'articles de Jules Bloch 1906-1955, Paris, 1985.
1999 Yogîndu, Lumière de l'Absolu. Traduit de l'apabhramsha par Nalini Balbir et Colette Caillat, Paris, Payot, Rivages, 1999.
2007 co-edition, with Nalini Balbir, of the volume Jaina Studies, Proceedings of the World Sanskrit Conference, Helsinki, 2003; in the press.

In 1981, Mme Caillat, who was the head of the research group "Equipe de philologie bouddhique et jaina", organised in Strasbourg the first International Jain Symposium outside India. The Proceedings were published in 1983 (Indologica Taurinensia 11).
In 1988, a Felicitation volume was offered to her (published as Indologica Taurinensia 14).