________________
viii
Preface
i. e. to say right to left arrangement. There are a few cases where the opposite arrangement is followed. For instance Subodhika furni. shes us with a 'curious word-chronogram. In some cases we come across word-chronograms of which one or more constituents are names of numbers and not words.
The Jaina manuscripts show that word-chronograms occur in versified colophons of Jaina works and at times in concluding lines written by scribes, whereby they indicate dates of corresponding manuscripts. A work named Ācāradinakara notes its extent by *means of a word-chronogram. In Prabhāvakacarita composed by Prabhācandra Sūri and divided into 22 sections, each known as “ śroga” śộnga XXI is referred to as “ kuyugma " ( v. 289). The number of şaşthas (a kind of penance ), the period of the glory of Jainism in the sth century etc. are also at times expressed in " word-chronograms".
A list of word-chronograms has been given by me in my edition of Ganilatilaka as appendix III ( pp. 107-113). A fairly long list is met with, in History of Hindu Mathemaiics (Part I, pp. 54-57) where this topic is nicely treated. Earlier than this is Bharatiya Pracina Lipimala. Here a list is given on p. 120.2 In History of Classical Sanskrit Literature its author M. Krishnamachariar says in his introduction (p. LXII) to this work:
“The first complete list is that given by Alberuni (A.D. 1031); the following is from his list, as translated by Woepoke supplemented from Brown's Cyclic Tables' and Inscriptions."
Keśavamiśra in his 3 Alankārasekhara (marici XVIII ) has given a list of words which convey numerals from one to one thousand.
1 A similar example is furnished by the date of composition of Vicāraratnakara. Here the word-chronogram " -164FT-71-999 stands for 1690, the constituents separately denoting 6, 1, 0, and 9.
% I, too, have dealt with this topic in my Gujarāti article "T&IFI feresia". It is published in " Jaina Satya Prakāśa" (Vol. XIV, No. 2, (pp. 33-37).
3 This is published in "Kāvyamālā". The work is divided into three parts: (a) kārikās, (b) vștti and (c) examples, and it is composed in the latter half of the 16th century A, D;