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Publisher's Note This is the thirteenth publication and it is a matter of great satisfaction for our Society. For the author/editor of this work (i.c. the first clapter of the first part of the Acārānga, the earliest and oldest composition in the Ardhamāgadhi Prakrit language), it is an event of great pleasure that it has been possible to complete this work inspite of various Hurdles. It has been re-edited linguistically only which was a herculean task for any editor who would have undertaken to do so, as per the opinion of various scholars and particularly the late AgamaPrabhākara Muni Shri Punyavijayaji and Pt.. Shri Bechardasji Doshi. It took almost ten years to prepare this edition as it was indispensable first of all to sort out the archaic word-forms of the original Ardhartāgadhi Prakrit from the authentic published editions of the senior Ardframmāgadhi texts and whatever Mss. of the Acărănga were accessible to the author. And for this thousands of word to word cards of textual readings were prepared and arranged alphabetically to ascertain the original form of the words.
To bring home the truth regarding the principles applied in editing this ancient text it was indispensable to do some spade-work for the conviction of the scholars and the orthodox clergy about the archaic form of the Ardhamāgadhi language and in that context our Society published three works, viz. (1) Prācīna Ardhamāgadhi ki Khoj mem, 1992, (2) Restoration of the Original Language of Aidhamāgadhi Texts, 1994 and Paramparāgata Prākta Vyākaraņa Ki Samiksā aur Ardhamāgadhi, 1995 penned by the same author as well as a number of his articles in reputed journals.
We have appended purposefully at the end of this text opinions and reviews of the above mentioned three publications with a view to make the subject understand in its proper
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