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INTRODUCTION
General remarks
This work on Kāvyaprakāśa brings to light the hitherto unpublished commentary of Bhatta Someśvara, known by the name of Kävyädarśa Kāvyaprakāśa-samketa, one of the earliest commentaries on Kāvyaprakāśa. For the editing of Kā vyaprakāśa itself, there is new material in the form of two very old manuscripts, one on palm-leaf and the other on paper, none of them, probably used before. Various readings from the edition of Kāvyaprakāśa with Māņikyacandra's Saṁketa (1921 A. S. S. Poona) and its fourth edition with Jhalkikara's commentary (1921 B. O. R. I. Poona), have also been noted. These are respectively named A, B, C and D.
Kāvyādarśa Kāvyaprakāśa-samketa
The text of Kāvyādarśa Kavyaprakāśa-samketa is based upon a copy of two palm-leaf Mss. belonging to the Badā-Bhandara of Jesalmere in Rajasthan. This copy which belongs to the mss. collection of Gujarat Vidya Sabha of Ahmedabad was prepared by Pandit Keshavaram Shastri who was deputed by the institution for the purpose of inspecting the Mss. of the Bhandaras under the guidance of Acharya Shri Jinavijaya Muni. One of the palm-leaf Mss, is complete, the other comes upto the seventh Ullasa. Both these palm leaf Mss. have been noted by C.D. Dalal in his Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Jain Bhandars at Jesalmere (p. 43 and p. 12 respectively). These have been described by Muni Shri Punyavijayaji also in his sit Juha TPT. Jaarsustu-ete-set to be published shortly by the Jain Svetāmbar Conference, Bombay. There is a very recent paper ms. of this work in the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, also. This paper ms. seems to be a copy of the palm-leaf ms. No. 346 of the Bada-Bhandara. It is described in the Descriptive Catalogue of the Government Collections of Mss. Vol. XII pp. 77–78. These Mss. are called A. B. C. respectively.
1 There is another palm-leaf Ms. of the Samketa in one of the Bhandars at Patan It is too worn out to be handled.