________________
षट्खंडागम की शास्त्रीय भूमिका
१४
The Prakrit of the Sutras, the Gathas as well as of the commentary, is Sauraseni influenced by the older Ardha Māgadhi on the one hand and the Māhārashtri on the other, and this is exactly the nature or the language called Jain Saurseni by Dr. Pischel and subsequent writers. It is, however, only a very small fraction of the whole text that has now been edited critically so far as was possible with the available material. Final conclusions on this subject as well as on all others pertaining to this work must wait till the whole or at least a good deal of it has been so edited.
I have avoided details in this survey of Shatkhandagama because I have discussed all these topics fully inmy introduction in Hindi to which my learned readers are referred for details. The available manuscripts of the work are all very corrupt and full of lacunae, being very recent copies of a transcript which, so to say, had to be stolen from Mudbidri. My great regret is that inspite of all efforts, I could notget at the only oll manuscript preserved there. So the text had to be constituted from the available copies as critically as was possible according to the principles which I have explained in full in my Hindi introduction. Inspite of all these difficulties, however, I hope my readers will not find the text as unsatisfactory as it might have been expected under the circumstances.
