Books and Papers

Author(s): A N Upadhye
Publisher: Hindi Granth Ratnakar

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future historian of Indian literature will nd sufficient material in them on that particular author or work.
A large number of papers are devoted to the study of individual authors and works, discussing a number of literary and chronological problems. Some of them deal with linguistic topics, and a few others are devoted to the elucidation of cultural and religious questions. Some papers (II 37, 50, 64) make a survey of Prakrit languages and literature, in part or as a whole. The essay on Prakrit literature is a summary of a large amount of material on the subject.
It is only incidentally that my book-reviews and the publications with which I am associated as General Editor are listed here.
In this context, it is pleasant to look back and remember with gratitude what I owe to my teachers, friends and colleagues. Dr. P. L. Vaidya, now Director, Mithila Institute, Darbhanga, initiated me in Prakrit studies and showed me the possibilities as well as the lines of research in this neglected branch of Indology. During my college days, his personal library was always open to me, thanks to Mrs. Vaidya, even when he was not at home. What I owe to this great savant is beyond expression.
As a post-graduate student I attended the lectures of the late lamented Dr. V. S. Sukhtankar on Comparative Philology: in later years, I had many occasions of closer contact with him. If I concentrated on critical editions, that was due to the advice and inspiring example of this great Editor of the Mahabharata. On the value of critical texts, he wrote to me once (June 4, 1942): "That was a great drawback in Indian scholarship, that the Indian Sanskritists had no regard for the text. I am glad that that want is being rapidly met by the appearance of scholars like yourself, who realize the value of a reliable text and take the pains to produce one. Only a sound and critical text can serve as the foundation of further research in literature. In the absence of such texts, all subsequent research is sheer waste of good time and energy, as has proved to be the case in so many notable instances of operating with a corrupt or defective text. Half the controversies in the world would never have been begun if we had better texts!"