 In today's presentation, I first explain why I have chosen a hagiography dealing with Ramchana Sury. Next, I highlight the five main controversies which turned Ramchana Sury into one of the most influential Jain Acharyas of the 20th century. And at the end of this presentation, I suggest considering these controversies in terms of their importance for contemporary Shwetambara self-assertion as a religious minority. This paper on Ramchana Sury's hagiography takes up a recent trend of examining the lives of 20th century Jain saints. And it's, I think, well presented today. At the same time, my paper stands a little apart as it seeks to investigate a particular English Jain hagiography of the 20th century which has fallen into my hands a month ago only and deals with Jain Acharya of the Tapagacha Samudai I am particularly familiar with. And in order to give you a more detailed idea of this, I would like to give you the, during my long-term research from 2001 and to 2003 in Paletana, my interactions with Jain aesthetics focused on Ramchana Sury Samudai. In 2002, Chatomars, in, sorry, in 2002 Chatomars, not less than 14 Acharyas of Ramchana Sury Samudai, had assembled and guided a huge rainy season assembly of about 200 Sardus, 500 Sardvis, and about 3,500 lay people. In this intense period of my research, I established close contacts with the Samudai that continue until today. Thus, during the last 10 years, my reflections on Svetambara community have been tremendously influenced by these contacts. I also benefit from my connections to Ramchana Sury Samudai with respect to my present research project which is on Child Initiation, Baldyksha. In the course of this work, I also have come across hagiographies of Ramchana Sury, you will soon understand why, including this exclusively English volume published in 2013. The author of this hagiography, Salvi Jean-Pragnias Srijy, is in her 40s and never met Ramchana Sury personally. She obtained the order to arrange the volume through her guru Kirtia Sury, who is on this picture here with his school. And Kirtia Sury obviously pre-selected many of the hagiography subjects due to his intimate knowledge of Ramchana Sury's life. As Kirtia Sury himself puts it in the introduction, quote, lived in his August presence since he was a boy of eight, I, he was a boy of eight, took diksha under him when he was 14, end of quote, and also served the ailing senior acharya during the last 10 years of his life. Thus, Kirtia Sury can be seen as one of the aesthetics who once belonged to the inner circle of his school and his point of view is traceable throughout the volume. The openly proclaimed purpose of this volume is, according to its author, to provide a source on Ramchana Sury's life for English speaking upper middle class Jains. In particular, for the youth with English language education, if not with the center of life in UK or US. The volume also aims to reach an audience beyond the Jain community as reflected by the fact that basic terms are carefully explained and even listed in a glossary at the end of the volume. Very simple terms, a Jain would know at once. Another less overtly proclaimed but still visible motivation for writing the hagiography stems from Kirtia Sury's endeavor to strengthen his claim for leadership of Ramchana Sury Samudai as he is one of the most promising candidates for being selected as Gatshadi Party in the future. In the hagiography by Jean-Pragne Shridri, Ramchana Sury's life is presented to the reader in the form of an auspicious number of 108 anecdotes. Remarkably, almost all of them point to the conflictual situation of a saint who, according to Kirtia Sury, was, quote, either abused or applauded, end of quote. Thus, this hagiography appears particularly important as it offers a wide range of controversial subjects. At the same time, this is particularly surprising as controversies are usually not made public. Though controversial issues have been and still are almost daily issues among my Jain friends, at least in Paletana, Amdabad and Mumbai, they are discussed behind closed doors only and with a certain feeling of uneasiness. Conflicts threaten to disrupt the unity of the community as they obviously contradict two basic values, non-violence, ahinsa, and the acceptance of manifold viewpoints known as anekandavada. However, one cannot deny that the intellectual disputes in which Ramchandra Sury was involved often led and still lead to public conflicts within local and pan-Indian Shwetambara communities and also outside Shwetambara community and also with a wider society. As the English hagiography of Ramchandra Sury's openly addresses several controversial issues, I dare to bring these conflicts back on stage. If we systematically turn to these controversies, we cannot deny that they have significantly shaped the Shwetambara community of the 20th and the beginning 21st century. In the following, I will attempt to give an overview of the most important controversies by pointing out to five general issues underlying these conflicts. First, defending Baldyksha or the initiation of children into an ascetic fold. Second, proclaiming a strict interpretation of Ahissa. Third, the proper use of the Devdraviya donations. Fourth, the ekandvati-titi dispute. And fifth, the dispute on Guru Pudja. These issues are not really new for scholars of Jainism, but it is new that they are so crucial for a hagiography in order to characterize Ramchandra Sury as a pugnacious and persistent personality. It is of course very helpful for my present research project on Baldyksha that this issue was the first to be raised during Ramchandra Sury's early life before he took Dikshah when he was known as the boy Tribhuvan alia Sabudho. Tribhuvan was born in spring 1896 into a successful joint family of Jain visa Shreemali merchants in the village Parada close to Kambad. Though strictly speaking, Ramchandra Sury was not a child anymore when he took Dikshah at the age of 17. His hagiographies draws a vivid picture of a spiritually premature boy who experienced very early in life, the quote, call of the soul, which is also the title of the book. After his parents died during the plague epidemic of the late 19th century, Tribhuvan had a strong experience of world detachment and had expressed the urge to live as a Jain sadhu since he was seven years of age. Several encounters with Jain sadhus and their local upashraya point to a serious boy who carefully examined the truthfulness of the monks and refused to respect them if he found their discipline to lacks. Religious activities were further promoted by his great-grandmother who taught him the daily rituals, sent him to the local pachala and motivated him to take up fast regularly at the age of seven. However, she was not ready to give her permission when he finally asked her consent to take Dikshah at the age of nine. Consequently, the ritual was stopped by his paternal uncle who tried to divert him from religious matters by placing him in the service of an advocate for the next eight years. Tribhuvan met his future guru Prem Vijay later known as Prem Suri when he was 14 years of age and when under his guidance the desire to take Dikshah flared up again, Tribhuvan was even banned from visiting the local upashraya. Only three years later in 1913 he successfully outwitted his guardian and after an awkward escape received Dikshah by Dan Suri with the name of Ram Vijay. The focus of Tribhuvan's childhood and youth can clearly be seen as a prelude to Ram Chandra Suri's lifelong concern for Bal Dikshah. None of the other controversial issues is taken up as frequently. As my presentation today must also pay attention to several other and equally important issues, I cannot discuss Ram Chandra Suri's dedication to Bal Dikshah in detail at this point. However, the main argument can be paraphrased as follows again in the words of his Shishya Kirtir Suri. Quote, due to the spiritual education received at a very early age, a Balmumukshu has no difficulties to choose the road less traveled road, the road less traveled. Whereas for a layman separating a child from his mother appears inhuman, the spiritual seeker understands both the souls are taken away from bondage and dependence and only without bondage there's a road to spiritual bliss. End of quote. The positive attitude towards the issue of Bal Dikshah has promoted, as promoted by Ram Chandra Suri Samudai until today rests on two equally important claims. On the one hand it refers to the religious freedom of the individual but also of the religious minority in general. On the other hand it deals with the survival of the ascetic Shritambara orders in particular with regard to the central importance of child initiation for the upbringing of future Acharyas and I want to add that all of the Acharyas who were presented today had a Bal Dikshah. When the public controversy about Bal Dikshah eventually led to several court cases in Baroda from 1929 to 1930 and finally ended with a ban on child initiation in this princely state, Ram Vijay took the side of Sagar Anand Suri and of Laabdi Suri and of Acharya Tulsi and against the reformist Acharya Vallabh Vijay who was supported by the Jain Juvak Sangh. Despite the public disapproval of Bal Dikshah in colonial India and also later after independence, the mature Ram Chandra Suri initiated many children himself throughout the decades. Okay, the next topic which at first glance might not have an equally high potential for conflict became very controversial after publicly being addressed by young Muniram Vijay and that is the issue of proclaiming a strict interpretation of Ahimsa. Immediately after his Dikshah, young Ram Vijay retreated for about four years from the world and devoted himself exclusively to the extensive textural study of the Shastras. When at the end of this period, one of the more senior ascetics fell ill before a sermon, the only 20 year old monk had to take on this task and his oratory talent was discovered straight away. His sermon soon attracted larger crowds of people and even from outside the Jain community. A certain public fame was bestowed on the 24 year old Ram Suri during his first rainy season in Ahmedabad in 1920 when he delivered public sermons at central places of the city. Initially, he focused on quite a simple subject, namely in denouncing the popular habit of lay people of regularly eating in restaurants, which ignored the strict dietary rules as proclaimed in the Jain Shastras. Apparently, his charismatic speech had such a lasting effect even on non-Jains that two of the most popular restaurants, Chandra Vilas and Lakshmi Vilas, recorded a significant decline in visitors and a serious loss of earnings. However, with regard to the next conflict, Ram Suri had to stand up to an even more prominent opponent. After Ram Vijay had straightforwardly decried the animal sacrifice in the Badakali Temple, a public protest against this Hindu practice was formed with the effect that animal sacrifices were suspended by a responsible Pandit who feared the violence of the mob. Against this type of propaganda, Gandhi argued in the weekly journal Navjivan that, quote, the goat has been rescued at the cost of indulging in oppression of the priest. How can one resort to tyranny to save a goat? End of quote. Despite his opposition, Gandhi, who was 30 years his senior, was obviously impressed by the charisma and the public impact of the young Ram Vijay. Thus, he sent some of his Satya companions in order to win him over to his own ranks, an attempt which remained unsuccessful. The moral argument between Ram Vijay and Gandhi was resumed once again when, in 1926, the Kaliko textile owner, Ambalal Sarabhai, Ejain Shravak, gave the order to shoot 60 dogs at his factory premises in order to prevent the spread of rabies. While Ram Vijay condemned this act as a senseless cruelty, Gandhi countered in Navjivan that it was the duty of the factory owner to protect his employees against rabies. He probably did not expect that Ram Vijay would reply again by taking Gandhi's newspaper article as a hook for his next sermon. Ram Vijay explained to an audience of several thousand that an apostle for Ahimsa must not reduce his concern to humans, but also has to consider less powerful animals and all life forms. Ram Vijay's goal was nothing less than to present a radically Jain definition of Ahimsa, which was clearly different from Gandhi's politically motivated concept of non-violence. Needless to say that according to Ram Vijay, Gandhi's version of Ahimsa was gross misinterpretation of the fundamental value of the Jain Shastras. Ram Vijay turned his harsh criticism also against Jain reformist educational projects, mainly with the initiative to stop the vivisection of frogs at Jain colleges and universities in 1929. According to Ram Vijay, the organizers and trustees of these educational projects had raised money for the institutions in the name of Jain Dharma, but allowed practices at these schools which were contrary to the basic doctrines. This accusations of misusing the community's property leads us also to the next issue. And this is about Devdrava donations. The first opponent, as mentioned earlier in his own ranks, was the reformist-minded Acharya Balabsuri, who was supported by the reformist organization Jain Juvaksang. An important matter of discord was the usage, or rather the misuse, of the Devdrava donations to temples. These donations are considered as the spiritually most beneficial act of giving, or rather giving up for a layman. According to the strict interpretation as favored by Ram Vijay, donations of that category may exclusively be used for maintaining the temple building and the images, but not for paying the temple servants or for sponsoring charitable projects. However, at the beginning of the 1930s, it was a common practice of many Jain temple trusts to divert money from the Devdrava fund or other purposes. Whereas many reformists saw to officially acknowledge this practice as acceptable, Ram Vijay held that this practice counteracted and devalued the traditional act of ritual gift-giving and also the prescription-given and the seven fields of giving. The situation got out of control when after a public debate in 1979 in Bombay, the respected followers of the opponents started to physically attack each other and also threatened the involved ascetics. A year later, Ram Vijay officially received the title of Vyakyan Vajaspati, charismatic and powerful preacher and was inaugurated as Panya's a Jain teacher. This office entitled him to actively discuss both his favorite subjects, Baldyksha and Devdrava at the All India Shwetamba Mutipuja Shravan Samelan in March, 1934 in Ahmedabad. After 34 days of convention, the decision was taken that in all respects, the injunctions of the Shastras must be followed and with regard to both the crucial subjects for him, the dispute was settled in favor of Panya's Ram Vijay's understanding of these issues. In April, 1936, two years after the Shravan Samelan, when Ram Vijay was 40 years old, Prem Suri ordained him an acharya and his name was expanded to Ram Chandra Suri. His lay followers included a disproportionately high number of industrialists and politicians. For this conjuncture, Ram Chandra Suri was criticized many times. He, however, argued that there were many millionaires among his followers due to the fact that they were greater sinners than the poor and thus needed spiritual instruction more urgently. Consequently, Ram Chandra Suri inspired a high number of millionaires to take diksha, including spectacular cases of multimillionaires taking diksha in a cricket stadium. He also prompted a number of generous donations, especially with regard to the Dev Dravya fund. This led to some of the most important Jain temple constructions in the 20th century and also renovation projects, which undoubtedly serve as a significant representation of a religious minority. However, the problem remained how to pay the temple servants. In 1987, 91 year old Ram Chandra Suri took up the issue again while spending Chattomars and Palletana. And for his initiative, he received sympathies across the Jain orders by encouraging the establishment of a special fund. Before the next rainy season in 1988, 10 million rupees were collected, which were paid into the Schrimar-Ginemannier General Fund. From the interest of this fund, the temple servants and other employees of the Anandji Kalanjipedi are paid to the present day. The fourth issue is the before mentioned issue regarding the Panchang, the Ig and BTD dispute. This is the perhaps most prominent example for an ongoing dispute within the ascetic orders of the Tapagacca. And this regards the disagreement with regarding, sorry, the ritual calendar Panchang. As the details of this dispute have already been elaborated and commented by John Kord in 1999, I will focus here on the most important social implications of the dispute. The controversy began in 1935, led to a severe fraction within Tapagacca, flared up again in the late 1980s and continues until today. The first serious dispute about the Panchang regulation arose during Chathomas of the year 1935, with regard to the question when to celebrate Samvatsali Pratekamman. In the course of it, the alleys in terms of Baal diksha, Saga Anand Sui and Ram Vijay, at this time still a Mooney, became opponents. With regard to the respective regulations favored by them, Saga Anand Sui became the spokesman of the so-called Ig TT Paksh and Ram Vijay became known as the leader of BTD Paksh. As different interpretations resulted in celebrating the most important Jain festival on different days, emotions among the lay people were high and occasionally even escalated. Consequently, between 1942 and 1943, the Ananjikalajipedi arranged several meetings of the opponents in Paletana and urged them to negotiate a uniform ritual calendar in order to prevent the split of the gacha. When, after several months of tough negotiations, no agreement could be reached. An impartial Sanskrit scholar, Hindo, Pandit Parshaman Vadia from Pune, was consulted as an arbitrator and Pandit Vadia clearly agreed with Ramchanga Sui at this time, Ram Vijay. But his judgment was not accepted by Saga Anand Sui with the effect that the tapagacha was split into two fractions that remain reconciled until today. The majority of tapagacha adheres to the Ig TT Paksh while the BTD Paksh is today exclusively presented by the Ramchanga Sui Samudai. In its core, the interpretation of the ritual calendar is concerned with adhering to ritual observances which clearly form another important general feature of a religious community similar to sacred buildings. This also holds for the last controversial issue to be mentioned today and that is the dispute on Guru Pudja. In the mid-1970s, only a few years before Ramchanga Sui's 18th birthday, another dispute with regard to ritual observances arose, this time concerning the particular mode of worship of living and deceased Acharyas. According to the hagiography, this controversy was started by lay people who were already displeased by the ongoing Panchang dispute. Emotions were so high on the part of the laity that Ramchanga Sui's followers had to demand police protection for their guru in order to guard him against assassination attempts. And the Ramchanga Sui Samudai, the Guru Pujjan to all nine limbs, the Nawang, of an Acharya is carried out with vasakchip powder in the same way as sandalwood paste, Jandan is applied to nine limbs of the image of a Jina. Eke Titi Samudais reject this practice and consider it sacrilege. They maintain that only the portraits of a Jina can be worshipped in that mode, whereas they venerate their Acharyas by touching only the right food, Eke Angni Pudja. With reference to several citations of Jain scriptures, Ramchanga Sui and his successors argued and continue to argue that the Nawangni Pudja had been recommended by ascetic authorities of earlier centuries. More so than by Ramchanga Sui himself, this argument was permanently promoted by his disciples and successors Mahodaya Sui, Hambushan Sui, Puneval Sui and Kiria Sui. This form of worship finds its clearest expression today in the memorials dedicated to Ramchanga Sui, which were created after he deceased in 1991 at the age of 96. The most important one of these is surely the Smirti Mandi and Amnabad, which was consecrated in 2002 close to the site of Ramchanga Sui's cremation site, sorry, on the bank of the river Savabati. And it contains a number of images of the Acharyas in different life stages, as we can see here. His Ante Miatra, the last journey of his body to the cremation ground, was accompanied by several tens of thousands of people, not only Janes, and had full media coverage. This might provide a clue about the phenomenon that despite, or rather because, of having the reputation of being relentless up to the point of obstinacy, Ramchanga Sui was one of the most influential Jane leaders of the 20th century. I will now come to a short conclusion. The choice of controversies as the main subject of a Jane hagiography appears extraordinary only at first glance. In fact, according to the general perspective of ascetics, the insistence on a particular position and the concern for the preservation of doctrine and their correct interpretation goes back to the very old conviction that only the discourse on the Shastras can guarantee the preservation of the Jane Sharsen and thus best serve the community. From the point of view of ascetics, these discourses only become problematic if they leave the ascetic community and are evaluated or devaluated by lay people. At the same time, Ramchanga Sui gained importance because of his stamina with regard to the competition with other spiritual leaders. Thus, he is praised by his lay followers exactly because he never yielded on any of the disputes that he regarded as essential. With regard to the content of the disputes, we can hardly claim that the issues were chosen randomly. On the contrary, all of the five commonly known disputes of lasting importance, not only for Ramchanga Sui Samadai but for the whole Shwetambara community. Moreover, I would like to suggest that on a more general level, we can also state that the disputes always include messages that aim to defend the Shwetambara Jane community as a religious minority within the wider multi-religious society of Western India. Thus, the issue of Baldyksha correlates with the question of religious freedom. The strict definition of Ahinsa seeks to be separated from its rather mundane interpretation and the issue of Devdravia clearly argues against an alienation of communal Jane assets for a more general purpose. Likewise, the Panjang dispute and the controversy with regard to the Guru Puja gained importance by the declared need to present a unity within a multi-religious environment. For this reason, it is no surprise that an aesthetic Jane order, which is known for its radical stance, has produced the most extensive hagiography of its founder in English language and thus to a larger readership. In that sense, his hagiography can also be read as a kind of manifesto for a future leader, in this case of Kirtia Sui, who provides us with a guideline on how he is going to lead his community through the challenges of the 21st century. I would like to leave for the discussion a very simple knowledge question. To what extent do these aforementioned and other disputes emerge in hagiographies of other historical and contemporary Acharyas? And how do they complement the image drawn by Gina Pragnashreeji in her hagiography about Ramchandra Sui? Thank you very much.