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18
INTRODUCTION
unable to distinguish the matras-'a' and 'e'; has made the confusion of vowels, which mainly accounts for mistakes at various places. Besides many such causes there are blank dotted spaces just as ......: given in the Ms. which indicate that either some letters have been brushed out of the original Ms. or it did not have that portion at all. Leaf numbering 487 is missing in the Ms.
From the Prasasti, at the end of the Ms., it is clear that this was written by Sahu Dhanaraja of Nāmaḍāgotra for Dharmasūri of Viśālagaccha beginning from Aryarakṣita. Further it is known that the Ms. is a copy of the Ms. which was got written by Santi, a generous aṇuvrati Śrāvaka and presented to Nāgadevagani. The copyist was Visnudeva who copied it in Samvat 1662. From the external evidences, e.g. the quality of the paper etc., of the present Ms. it can be conjectured that this copy was prepared without the lapse of any long interval of time. Reference has already been made to the fact that the Ms. is full of mistakes and omissions. The corrections in SVT have been given in round brackets () and additions have been shown in square brackets [ ]
2. The reconstruction of Siddhiviniscaya and its Vṛtti:
As already stated, SV and SVV are reconstructed with the help of SVT, so with a view to substantiate the correctness of the reconstruction of the said texts, the references to SV and SVV, found here and there in the SVT and other Jaina as well as non-Jaina works, have been added in the foot-note called Aloka-Tippana. The SV. and SVV of Akalanka have been reconstructed by selecting words from the SVT. It was, indeed, very difficult to reconstruct SV in various metrical forms; still it had to be done and an appreciable success has, it is hoped, been achieved. The difficulty is felt still more when SVT is silent at certain places; and at such spots the reconstruction has only been possible where other sources were available. It is quite possible that in such a stupendous text as SVT, comprising almost as many as eighteen thousand verses (granthagra), the words of SV and SVV, selected for commentary, may be merged in the SVT or the words of the SVT may be mistaken to be those of SV and SVV.
Being quite aware of these difficulties, attempt has been made to the best of the author's capacity to reconstruct SV and SVV. Hence, the SV and SVV have been printed in square brackets []; such brackets are also given for the words which are added with the help of the works other than SVT.
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