Bruhat Katha kosha

SR No.: 016060
Original Sutra Author: Harishen Acharya
Publisher: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
Publication Year: 1943
Total Pages: 566
Language: Prakrit, Sanskrit
Classification: Dictionary & Dictionary
File Size: 16 MB

Page 27

[A 16]
(2) From late great Indologist,
PROFESSOR Dr. M. WINTERNITZ, Ph. D., Professor of Indology and Ethnology at the German University of Prague (Czechoslovakia).
It is with great pleasure that to-day I am able to welcome the new Singhi Jain Series, published under the able editorship of Jinavijaya Muni, the professor of Jaina culture at Viśvabharati, Santiniketan. The three volumes which lie before me, include critical editions of Merutunga's Prabandha Cintamani, Rajasekhara Suri's Prabandha Kosa and Jinaprabha Suri's Vividha Tirtha Kalpa.
All the three works belong to the first half of the 14th century A. D. Though their chief contents are legends, stories and anecdotes, they are not without historical significance. The works of Merutunga and Rajasekhara, treating of historical and literary personages, the great Jaina monk Hemacandra and King Kumārapāla amongst others, have been utilized by the late Bühler for historical purposes in his well-known Life of Hemacandra, which is now being translated into English and will also be included in the Singhi Jain Series. Merutunga's Prabandhacintamani is best known by C. H. Tawney's English translation, published in the Bibliotheca Indica, 1901, but the edition of the text published at Bombay, 1888 is hardly available, for Tawney translated the text from three manuscripts. I know of no edition of Rajasekhara's Prabandhakosa. An edition of the Tirthakalpa of Jinaprabha, a work which describes Jinistic places of pilgrimage, giving the names of their founders, the kings by whom they were restored, and their dates, has begun to be published in the Bibliotheca Indica, 1923, but seems to be still incomplete. Thus the editions of the three works in the Singhi Jain Series meet a real want of Indology.
The three volumes are excellently printed and got up, good selections of manuscripts have been used for the texts, variants are given, and useful Indices have been added. Like so many other Jaina publications the Singhi Jain Series owes its origin to a pious foundation. It has been founded by Sriman Bahadur Singhji Singhi of Calcutta in memory of his late father Sri Dalcandji Singhi. The founder and the Editor of the Series, are heartily to be congratulated on these publications, and we wish it every success for its progress.
(Sd.) M. WINTERNITZ.