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INTRODUCTION.
Jain literature, comprising as it does almost all the branches that are characteristic of ancient Indian literature, holds no insignificant niche in the gallery of that literature. It is considerable even as it is at present, and was iuore so in former times. This is not the proper place to equmerate the great writers and their works that constitute the glory of that literature. The fact that the Jain writers had flourished in great abundance in times gone by, is evident from the vast stock of literature that has survived to this day, though it is yet in an unexplored state. Their eminence in subject inatter as well as language is manifest to those who are conversant with it.
Along with Indian literature at large, Jain literature too has been a participator in the unhappy fate it wet with at the hands Partly of alien bigotry, and partly of nutual religious jealousy and from the pecliliarities of the cliniate. There was a time when there was no other alternative to secure the very existence of such literature but that of burying it in subterranean archives. The very method employed for the safety of the works became later on instrumental in further diminishing the stock, and that at a time when there was not the least chance of its being further enriched. Those upon whom bad fullen the task of being the hereditary custodians
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