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Preface
The first Gujarati edition of the Tattvarthasutra commentary was published in 1930 by Gujarat Vidyapeeth, Ahmedabad. The Hindi edition was published in 1939 as the first volume of the Shri Atmanand Birth Centenary Memorial Granthamala, Bombay. In the introduction (foreword) of this Hindi edition, some revisions were made, and editors Shri Krishnachandraji and Pandit Dalsukhbhai Malvania included a glossary and the text of the sutras along with available variations. In the 'Introduction', particularly reconsidering the tradition of the commentator Umaswati, it was stated that he belonged to the Shwetambara tradition. Based on this Hindi edition, a second edition of the Gujarati version was published in 1940 by Shri Pujabhai Jain Granthamala, Ahmedabad, and a third edition, with specific clarifications added at four places in the commentary, was published in 1949 by the same granthamala. Later, a second Hindi edition with those clarifications was published in 1952 by the Jain Culture Reform Committee, Varanasi.
An essential excerpt from the statement of the first Gujarati edition (1930) is given here, which primarily reveals three points. Firstly, it describes how the commentary was initially intended to be written and how it ultimately was composed. Secondly, it explains why the commentary was concluded in the first Gujarati edition, even when starting to write in Hindi, and why the entire commentary was first published only in Gujarati. Thirdly, it discusses how and with which officials in mind the commentary was written, what its basis is, and what its form and style were intended to be. "The initial conception - nearly twelve years ago when I was in Pune with my kind-hearted friend Shri Ramanikalal Maganlal Modi, B.A., we both together contemplated extensively on the subject of literature creation."