Virachand Gandhi

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Virachand R. Gandhi (1864 - 1901) represented Jains in the World Religions Conference in Chicago in 1893. He was probably the first Jain to arrive in USA and his statue stands in the Jain temple at Chicago. A great Jain scholar and a barrister, Virchand Gandhi delivered 535 lectures in America. He spoke 14 languages including Gujarati, Hindi, Bengali, English, Sanskrit and French.

At 21, Gandhi became the first honorary secretary of the Jain Association of India in 1885. He worked for abolishing the tax levied on pilgrims to Mount Shatrunjay, Gujarat, India. In 1891, Mr. Boddam, one English man, started a factory for slaughtering animals near Mount Sametshikhar, a holy place of Jain pilgrimage. Virchand Gandhi stayed in Calcutta for six months, learned Bengali, prepared his case against the factory, and successfully got the factory closed.

Herbert Warren studied Jainism under him.

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