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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
(xi)
and the MSS. which go to make it up have been collected not only from Bengal but also from other places in Northern India. The doctrines and rituals described in these MSS. are (or were) current in Bengal and Assam, Orissa, Bihar, United Provinces, Kashmir and Nepal, and also in parts of South India. Bengal works, i.e. works composed or written in or outside Bengal by Bengali Tantric scholars and religious men, naturally predominate in a collection acquired primarily in Bengal. A good percentage of these works have a special connexion with Bengal: these are well known in this province, and were written in the local script, and besides, their popularity is still to be evidenced from editions of many of these published from Calcutta and elsewhere in Bengal. Over and above these well-known works, we have in the present collection numerous other texts which have not been published at all, and in some cases they appear to have never been mentioned in other treatises or in digests or lists of Tantric works: thus these latter can be characterised as 'new' or 'generally unknown' Tantric texts, for both Bengal and other parts of India.
(ii) Script.-The scripts used in the MSS. are generally Nāgara and Bengali, with a limited number in Later Gupta, Newari, Sāradā, and Odiyā. Among MSS. in non-Bengali scripts those of works of a definite Bengal origin possess particular interest.
Of the many-sided contributions of Bengal to Sanskrit Literature which are known and held in esteem outside Bengal the works on Navya Nyāya or Modern Logic are the most important. They are held in high esteem and assiduously studied to this day by scholars all over India. Mention might also be made of the works of Madhusudana Sarasvati whose Vedantic writings have rightly earned for him an all-India popularity. In the field of NavyaSmrti the reputation of the Gauda School is known to have been widely spread and MSS. of several works like the Dāyabhāga of Jimutvāhana and parts of the comprehensive Smrti-tattva of Raghunandana are reported from different parts of India.
MSS. of few Tantric works, however, specially later digests, mainly of a ritualistic character, which are popular in Bengal, are known to have been found elsewhere. And this is not at all surprising, for there is scarcely any ritualistic work of an all-India popularity. As a matter of fact, different parts of the same province
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