About the Author (K. C. Lalwani)

Professor K. C. Lalwani who is a Social Scientist with specialisation in Economics was born in 1921 and took his Master's Degree with a First Class from the University of Calcutta in 1943. He has taught Economic and Commerce at Calcutta, Poona and Delhi before joining the Indian Institute of Technology at Kh?r?g?ur? West Bengal (???) in 1954 where he is no?t?ed He??d of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. He has published many books and innumerable pa?es in Economics, Commerce, Political Science, Religion, Historiography, Educational Sociology and Contemporary United States. In 1960-61, he went to the United States on a one-year assignment when he addressed seminars at several universities and attended and participated in professional gatherings.

[K. C. Lalwani] travelled widely in the United States and six countries of Western Europe. Around 1967, he entered into the field of Jainology, wherein he has already published several volumes of the canonical texts. His work on the Bhagavati Sutra which will take many more years to complete has been hailed by Prof. Suniti Kumar Chatterjee as his magnum opus. His treatise on the life and doctrines of Mahavira has been reviewed in the United States as the best work on the subject. His lucid exposition of Jaina Stories has proved popular with the English-reading public. His translation of the Uttaradhyayana Sutra in verse—form has been acclaimed widely.

Late Professor K. C. Lalwani
born Jan 21, 1921 died Dec 10, 1983

About The Translator (from volume 4):

Kastur Chand Lalwani is a scholar who uses English, and he has already a mass of English writings of the highest excellence on Jaina texts and Jainistics. It will be difficult to find such a wonderful combination of common sense, of a sane approach to religion, with a rationalised love and respect for the Jaina tradition, all on the background of a deep knowledge and understanding of the fundamentals of the Jaina Weltanschauung and Jaina approach to the Reality. His beautifully printed edition of one canonical text, Daśavaikālika Sūtra, with Ardha-Magadhi text, and English translation and commentary is a scholars’ as well as book-lovers’ delight. And now we have before us what promises to be his magnum opus when he completes it, the first of the six volumes of Bhagavatī Sūtra, that huge encyclopaedic treatise, in an equally sumptuous edition-text, a fine translation in beautiful English with a commentary. This is a feast for all—intellectual, artistic and historical, and also, shall I say, spiritual ? We can only congratulate ourselves far this fine achievement and offer our grateful thanks to Kastur Chand Lalwani, wishing more power to his elbow, as well as to the Jain Bhawan of Calcutta which has given it out to the world.

—SUNITI KUMAR CHATTERJEE

National Professor of India in Humanities, Emeritus Professor of Comparative Philology in the University of Calcutta.