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XXVI
KUVALAYAMALĀ
the number of jīvas, whom we accompany through the vicissitudes of a number of bhavas, to five. As their histories are not connected to begin with but interlace only at a later stage; and as, moreover, they are not told in a tedious systematic or chronological order but-by a device common also in modern literatures are often put into the mouths of different characters of the story who tell them in retrospect, the plot of the novel becomes involved to a degree and is so difficult to follow that the editor has deemed it expedient to have the detailed analysis of contents followed by a second survey ("The story retold broadly") arranged systematically according to the five jīvas; I am sure every reader will find this as helpful as I did myself.
I wish and hope that Prākrit studies, happily on the up-grade in India after long times of neglect, will receive a fresh impetus and derive rich benefit from this edition of the Kuvalayamālā, by which Dr. Upadhye has rendered one more signal service to the cause of Prākrit literature and Indian Literature in general.
Seminar für Kultur und Geschichte Indiens University of Hamburg Hamburg (West Germany). May 18, 1969.
L. ALSDORF
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