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dictionary on scientific lines exists for throwing sufficient light on even the most important expressions, used by these master minds of old. In the existing literature, only two small dictionaries are seon and these too are rare. Their names are Pāialachhināmamālā and Desināmamālā.
Both are on metrical lines and not very useful, for the general public or for scholars of modern taste and type.
With the researches made by scholars, it has now become & matter of prime importance to prepare comprehensive dictionaries, elucidating the important terms, used in the different branches and offshoots of the great Prākrit which stands in need of the close and unceasing attention of scholars and general readers without whose active co-operation no hope can exist for the revival of the great literature, reflecting India and her people in the real light of civilization. The importance of a comprehensive dictionary on scientific lines is not unknown to scholars. In the absence of such a dictionary, confusion in thought is unavoidable and it is for this confusion that the great author of the Mahābharata, the renowned Vyás of old remarked " Veda is afraid of a man of little learning, lest he might hari it” (hy putting wrong interpretation on its contents ). From what is written above it will be clear that the glorious history of ancient India is lying in the dark depths of obscurity and no history of the civilization of the country in the past can be brought together without compilation of dictionaries, explaining the real sense of the important terminology of the literature. The whole of Jaina literature especially the thirty-two Āgamas (the sacred scriptures of the Jainas) is written in the Ardha-Magadhi forn of Prakrit. While studying these sacred texts, my father's attention was drawn to the English translation of some of these works by Western scholars, who with all their keen intelligence, vast erudition and admirable love for literature, have not been able to avoid putting in wrong interpretations because of their ignorance of the definite significance of technical terms due to the lack of a real dictionary. Even the great German scholar of Jaina literature, the learned Professor Herman Jacobi of
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