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INTRODUCTION.
dle of the total commentary. The same circumstance is further borne out by the fact of the existence of separate manuscripts, such as MSS. f and h, containing the entire collective commentary.
Various terms for the “commentary” are in use. Abhayadeva himself calls it a vivarana in the colophon of his work; and this term, accordingly, I have employed in the present edition. In the opening verse he describes it as a vyākhyā. He himself is called the writer of the vșitti, in No. 1533 of the Bikaner catalogue (p. 701). Finally in the Calcutta print (title-page) the commentary is called a ţikā.
In connection with this subject I may bere note, that from Abhayadeva's remarks on § 56 it is quite clear, that he also wrote a commentary (tīki) on the Āvashyaka, the second of the Mīlasūtras. At the same place he also refers to a Prākrit commentary (chūrni or vritti) of the same work, without, however, naming its author. This notice adds a third to the now known commentaries of Abhayadeva, outside the circle of the Angas. The other two are his commentaries on the first and second Upānga, the Aupapātika and the Rājaprashniya (see Journal of the German Oriental Society, vol. XXXIII, pp. 479, 694). There is a well-known vritti or țīkā on the Āvashyaka, which, however, is traditionally ascribed to Haribliadra Sūri who died Samvat 585
= 528 A. D.). It is fully described in Professor Weber's Catalogue of the Berlin Prākrit MSS., p. 763 (No. 1914). If this tradition is correct, Abhayadeva's tīkā, of ecourse, must be a different work. Of this tīkā, however, no manuscript appears to have been found as yet, unless the MS., No. 275 in Professor Peterson's Report 1884-86, should be a copy of it. It is designated a vivșiti, which is but another form of the name vivaraṇa, usually given to Abhayadeva's commentaries. It is also of a much smaller size (only 14940 granthas) than the known copies of Haribhadra's