________________
International Journal of Jain Studies Vol. 2, No. 1 (2006) 1-3
REVIEW OF ACHARYA KUNDKUND: BARASA ANUVEKKHA
Willem B. Bollée
M. K. Dharma Rāja (ed.) Acharya Kundkund, Barasa Anuvekkha (Twelve Contemplations). [Kundkund Bharati. Publication No. xi]. 2nd ed. Delhi: published by Kund Kund Bharati. 2003. xii +96p. Gratis.
In April 2004 many scholars of Prākrit were pleased to find a welcome present from the Digambara ācārya Śrī Vidyânand Jī Munirāj in their mailbox as reprints of Sauraseni texts are very rare nowadays and it is not easy to hear of their publication, let alone to obtain them. The present is therefore gratefully accepted and the following remarks are offered to the editor to be perhaps taken into account for a 3rd impression.
First, the reviewer would like to thank Dr Paul Dundas for a xerox of the Kundakunda-bhāratī. Phaltan, 1970 edition, pp. 309-24 by Pt Pannālāl (text with Hindi translation, abbreviated below as B); further, Mr Manish Modi for a xerox of the text in the Satprabhrtâdi-samgraha, pp. 427-42, edited by Pt Pannalal Soni and published in Bombay, 1920 by the Manikacandra Digambara Jaina Granthamālā as No 17 (A); and last but not least Dr Peter Flügel for a xerox of Brahmachari Shital Prasad's English translation (with text and Sanskrit rendering), entitled Twelve Meditations by Sri Kundakunda Acharya, and published in Madras in 1931 (D). Paris lacks the book, but there is a copy in the British Library. In the preface to the latter, p. viii, C. S. Mallinath says that the text and translation are based upon the Marathi edition of the book published by Sait Sakharam Nemchand Doshi of Sholapur,' place and year of publication of which are not mentioned. Thus reviewer could not check this. The Saurasenī text and the Sanskrit version of A and B are most times identical (exception, e.g., stanza (st.). 5). It was not possible to obtain for comparison the text in Kannada edited by T. Raghuchandra Shetty, mentioned in C (Preface, p. ix) because again particulars fail. It is to be hoped that Dharma Raja can supply such defects in a future edition. - The one under review here is marked by C and its free rendering on the whole hits the sense, as does Prasad's.
