BRAHAMCHARI SHITAL PRASAD

BRAHAMCHARI SHITAL PRASAD
(1879-10-2-1942)

One of the most outstanding authors and religious preachers Brahamchari Shital PrasadJain was born to his parents L. Makhan Lai and Smt. Naraini Devi at Lucknow.

At the age of 18 he passed matriculation examination in 1st Division. 4 years after he passed Accountantship from Roorkee Engineering College and joined government service.

His wife died of plague on 13th Feb. 1904. At the age of 32 he took the vow to celebacy. He had resigned from service on 19th Aug. 1905 and the same year he went to Bombay with Seth Maneck Chand J.P. where he stayed upto 1909 and did a great deal of religious work there.

He was extremely regular in religious duties. He gave active support to Dig. Jain Maha Sabha. Later he was one of the founders of Dig. Jain Parishad and a leading crusadar against social evils.

He toured in the entire country even in villages. He was prepared to go even to foreign countries for propagation of Jain religion. He went to Ceylon and Burma for thorough study of Buddhism. He was a true Jain Missionary.

He edited Jaint Gazettee, Jain Mittra and Vir and contributed articles regularly on social reforms. He was Adhisthata of Syadwad Mahavidyalaya, Varanasi.

Devoting about 12 hours every day for writing he wrote about 77 books which are classified as under: (1) Spiritual-26 (2) Jain religion and philosophy—18 (3) Ethics-7 (4) Ahimsa-2(5) Biographies-5 (6) Research and history-6 (7) Poetry-2 (8) Kosh-1 (9) Pratistha Path-1, and (10) Taran literature-9.

A scholar of Hindi, Urdu and English he had also learnt Sanskrit Pali, Apabhramsa, Prakrit, Magadhi, Kannad, Gujrati, Marathi and Persian.

Much labour and writing work had made him sick. Under the care of B. Ajit Prasad, Advocate he made a little progress at Lucknow. On 6th January, 1942 he had fracture in his pelvis bone. The great spiritual scholar breathed his last on 10th February, 1942 at Lucknow.