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Shri Jaina Conference Herald.
Bonn 7th July 1905 Dear Sir!
Yours of 16th June at hand; many thanks. The books you send will be in the hands of the several scholars, who will have, by this time, thanked you or the Sabha. I was glad to see your translation of the Pithabandha of the Upamiti Bh. Pr. Katha ard I hope that my edition of the original text will go on at such a pace that you need not stop your work of translation for want of materials. You will see that the text of the edition is very good beginning from about the middle of the fourth fasciculus.----As regards tho edition of the Adiswara caritra, I think it a very good one. My pupil Dr. Suali has carefully read the first edition and has made an abstract of the contents in Italian. He too assures me that he found few misprints. So I can give you no other hint but to go on with your work in the same way as up to now.
As regard your chronological speculations, I may remark that the date of Magha is not get ascertained. But this much is crtain that he lived before 800 A. D. because verses of his are quoted by Vamana and Anandvardhan who lived about 800 and 850 A. D. respectively. Thus the interval between Magha and Siddharsi is certainly more than one century. Therefore the traditions which make Magha a contenuparary of Siddharsi and of Bhoja, deserve no credit. Now as to the relation between Haribhadra and Siddharsi I differ from your opinion. If Haribhadra had preceded Siddarsi by 400 years, the latter could not have presumed to say that Haribhadra had composed the Lalita vistara for his sake; such a pretention would have been a want of modesty in Siddh, as so many generations had already been benefited by that work. But if Haribhadra was personally the guru of Siddharsi, the latter might have expressed himself in that way, attributing to the atfection of his kind teacher all he owed to him, though he owed his gÀata not to him persoually, but to a work written by Haribhadra. I prefer this interpretation of the verse sarà groeit to yours, because the language of Haribhadra in his
