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PREFACE
If it is true that the first aim of studies in the Jaina Canon should be the critical edition of its texts, yet the edition of some of these proves to be altogether impossible without a thorough preliminary stock-taking of their contents. This is particularly the case with the fifth Anga of the Canon, Viyāhapannatti, which tradition uses to call 'the Venerable' (Bhagavai). To the prospective reader this monumental text in fact presents itself as a kind of bewildering omnium gatherum of episodes, discussions, expositions, detached statements, calculations, references and quotations, all apparently quite different from each other both in tenor and in style, and even in origin and antiquity. Scientific investigation must, therefore, start with a detailed analysis of its composition. This was, I think, the late Professor SCHUBRING's idea when, about six years ago, he suggested that I should write ‘einen kritischen Index zur Viyāhapannatti' as he considered that work to be 'der längst fälligen kritischen Untersuchung wert'. Since WEBER'S 'Uber ein Fragment der Bhagavati' (1865), which was the very first Western approach to the Jaina Canon, as a matter of fact more than a century has passed away without this remarkable text getting the further attention it so eminently deserves. Fortunately, though, in his Worte Mahāvīras' (1927) SCHUBRING devoted a few excellent pages to it and again, in the same author's masterly Grundriss-work 'Die Lehre der Jainas nach den alten Quellen dargestellt' (1935) the Viyāhapannatti is the most frequently quoted canonical text.
The present work intends to give a fairly complete analysis of the Viyāhapannatti; moreover, in the introduction I have tried to answer at least some of the rather complicated questions regarding its composition. My efforts will be amply rewarded if this volume will incite others to tackle the many interesting
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