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PREFACE
. We are glad to publish Sri Padmaprabha-swami-caritra composed by Sri Devasuri, the great Jain Acarya of Jalihara Gachha. It is a good coincidence that this work was composed in Vikram Samvat 1254 in Vadhavana a well-known city of Gujarat. The Diction of this biographic Prakrit work, though scholarly is lucid and easy to follow. The author has occasionally interspersed the Prakrit passages with Sanskrit and Apabharamsa and this has made the work more relishable.
Though the theme of the work is the life-story of the Tirthamkarapadma Prabha, to make it more interesting and enlightening the author has woven the narrative with many stories and substories depicting the contemporary religious and social milieu. It is needless to say that this poetic depiction of contemporary socio-religious life will be very much useful to the students and the scholars interested in knowing the socio-religious and cultural life of that period.
The editor of this work Pt. Rupendrakumar Pagaria is well-known scholar of Prakrit and enjoys a long and rich experince of editing and research in the field. He has edited this work on the basis of a rarely available manuscript written in the 15th century. He has also taken pains to introduce this work to readers by giving preview of the work. Our Institute is greatful to Pt. Rupendrakumar Pagaria for having undertaken this challenging work.
We believe his work will be of great help to the scholars and lovers of the Indian literature.
Jitendrabhai B. Shah Hon. Director (Research)
Jain Education International 2010_04
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