Pt. Sukhlal Sanghvi
An eminent scholar, Pt. Sukhlal was born at village Leemli in Saurashtra on 8th Dec. 1880. He was fixed up in business after 7th class examination. At the age of 16 he had severe small-pox and lost his eyesight for ever.
Helpless against the destiny, young Sukhlal devoted himself to religious studies. He had early experiments in Shatavadhan and Tantra which he later gave up. He studied intensively Sanskrit, Prakrit, Vyakaran, Nyaya and literature at Banaras. He also went to Mithila and studied there Navya-Nyaya.
He was much influenced by “Karma Yoga” philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi with whom he worked in national movements and lived at Kocharab Ashram, Ahmedabad and later at Satyagraha Ashram, Sabarmati. In 1922, he joined as a teacher at Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad. He was at Shantiniketan for three months. He was Lecturer in Jain Philosophy in Banaras University during 1933-44 and thereafter Hon. Lecturer in Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan, Bombay. In 1947, he became Hon. Lecturer in Shri B.J. Vidya Bhavan, Ahmedabad and since then is permanently settled there.
Public Honours : Received Vijaydharma Suri Jain Literary Gold Medal in 1947,Mahatma Gandhi Prize of Rs. 1501 /- in 1956 by Rashtra Bhasha Prachar Samiti, Vardha, Hon. Degree of D. Litt from Gujarat, Sardar and Saurashtra Universities ; presided over Jain and Prakrit Section of 16th All India Oriental Conference held at Lucknow in 1951. In his 75th year of life he was felicitated and presented with a purse of Rs. 75,000 at Bombay of which he created Jnanodaya Trust.Multilinguist, Pt. Sukhlal is a learned scholar of Philosophy, Sanskrit, Gujarati, Hindi and Prakrit and is well versed with Pali,Marathi and English. He has made sincere efforts to pick up the best from all thoughts of Indian philosophy. He has written over 30 books and a large number of articles on philosophy, religion, literature and social and national topics. As a distinguished scholar of Sanskrit he received Govt. Certificate and annual pension of Rs. 3000/-. He has been honoured with the title of ‘Padma Bhushan in January, 1974.
