PT. PARMESHTHI DAS JAIN

PT. PARMESHTHI DAS JAIN
Chief Editor of the popular fortnightly 'Vir' Pt. Parmeshthi Das is a veteran bold journalist. His articles on social reforms and other topics appear frequently in various Jain magazines. Son of Shri Mauji Lai Jain, he was born at Mehrauni in Jhansi Division (U.P.) in January, 1908. He received early education at Dig. Jain Vidyalaya, Indore and passed Jain Sidhant Shastri examination in 1929 from Dig. Jain Parikshalaya, Sholapur and later Nyayatirtha examination from Bengal Sanskrit Association. His working centres have been Surat, Delhi, Saurashtra and Lalitpur. At Surat, he edited'Jain Mittra' etc. during 1929-44 and established ‘Hindi Pracharak Mandal' for popularising learning of Hindi among the Gujaratis. Under it, he organised Hindi Vidya Mandir where he and his wife Smt. Kamla Devi 'Rashtra Bhasha Kovid' did teaching work.

Pt. Ji and his wife were active participants in national movement during 1942 and suffered imprisonment at Sabarmati jail. Both have been honoured with 'Tamra Patras' and pension by the Govt. He had the opportunity to meet the senior leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, G.V. Mavlankar, Mahadev Desai, Vinoba Bhave and Kaka Kalelkar. From the very young age he has been a revolutionary social reformer with good results to his credit- He has written about 15 books on social reforms and in opposition of degenerated literature. Besides these, he wrote 4 books to teach Hindi to Gujaratis and translated Samayasar, Pravachansar and Moksh- shastra, etc. He is busy in writing and editing of several more books. A large number of his bold and literary articles have appeared in numerous magazines and journals. Vir Nirwan Bharati has felicitated him and awarded a cash prize of Rs 2500/- in recognition of his long and selfless meritorius services to the Jain literature and society. Settled at his native place Lalitpur, he looks after his Jainendra Press. His eldest son Shri Jainendra Kumar Jain, M.A. is associated with editing of ‘Madhuri' of Times of India Group, film writing and film production at Bombay.

Pt. Parmeshthi Das is Managing Committee member of Varni Jain Inter College and Shri Nehru Maha Vidyalaya, Lalitpur and A. I. Dig. Jain Parishad. He is actively associated with various other religious, social and political institutions. Address: Jainendra Press, Lalitpur (U.P.).