________________
Intoduction
CCCIII
history of metres used in the different provincial languages of India. The illustrative stanzas also deserve attention; especially the Prāksta and Apabhramşı ones. The poetic quality of many of these verses is really high and if the majority of them are the work of Hemachandra, as it is supposed to be, they would show him to be a lyric poet of a high order.
The work requires to be critically edited and annotated.
Thus these three Anuşāsanas, the Şabdānuşāsana, the Kāvyānusāsana and the Chhandonuşāsana - and if the Lingānuşāsana is to be taken separately, four Anuşāsanas, and the two D. K. s comprise among themselves, the whole field of Lakshaņa and Sāhitya vidyās. They are Hemachandra's authentic contributions to the science and the art of language as they were understood in Ancient India.
Thus after making his contributions to the study of Lakshaņa and Sahitya, Hemachandra turned his attention to Pramāņaşāstra or Tarka-Logic and Dialectics. On this subject, he wrote a work called Pramāṇa-mīmāmsa. In the commentary on the first verse, Hemachandra says "that after the Sabdānuşāsana, the Kāvyānuşāsana and the Chhandonusāsana, Pramāna is being considered now. The identity of the authorship of the Sabdãnusisana etc. with that of this work is also implied."
From the introduction to the first sūtra, we learn that this work Pramāņa-mīmāmsā * was to consist of five Adhyāyas, no doubt on the model of the five adhyāyas of Gotam's Nyāya sūtra. But only a fragment
* A critical edition of this work is being prepared by Pt. Sukhlalji to be published in the S. J. S.
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
