Sadhvi Vishrut Vibha
The new era would bring fresh challenges and critical responsibilities for the newly selected Acharya Tulsi. The myriad of challenges he would face were both personal and organizational. The key issues were:
- How to establish himself as an erudite Acharya who would be able to command the respect of the senior and scholarly monks (sadhus) with whom he would interact daily
- How to educate the large number of unschooled sadhvis (nuns)
- How to inculcate Terapanthi religious values in the community
Immediately after becoming Acharya, Tulsi's first order of business was to centralize and unify Terapanth organization and administration. The beginnings of this initiative had taken place under the watchful leadership of the venerable Acharya Kalugani. Although a basic organizational structure was in place, a herculean effort was necessary to optimize the Terapanth order on operational and functional levels to make the best use of the resources at his disposal. He was determined to maximize the academic, ethical and spiritual development of his disciples.
Acharya Tulsi and many of his peers were well versed in Sanskrit; however none of them had thoroughly studied the scriptures and literature of Jain Agam (canonical texts) and Nyaya (Indian philosophical logic) to the degree that would classify them as scholars. To compound these issues, their study in Prakrit in which much of the original texts were written was in its early stages. Moreover, not one among them could be considered an impressive Hindi orator.
