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PRAPACE
(XI Bhandāra. Since then I earnestly hoped for an opportunity to edit the Dhūrtākhyāna.
It was in 1931, at śāntiniketana, that the idea of the Singhi Jaina Granthamālā was conceived; and along with many other Sanskrit and Präkrit works, I decided to include the Dhurtākhyāna also in the Mālā. The Mes. of it, seen by me many years back at Patan, were procured; and the press copy was prepared. But as my hands were fully occupied with many a book in the press, its printing could not be begun till as late as 1941. The Pātan Mss. were lying with me for years together; and when the eminent organiser of the Pātan Bhandāras, Munirāj Sri Punyavijayaji, specially pressed me to return the Mss., the happy moment of beginning its printing arrived. Consequently, today I feel happy to see that I am able to present this work to the scholarly world as the 19th volume of the Singhi Jaina Granthamālā.
My original plan was to present the Prākrit text, to give a Hindi or Gujarāti translation, and to reproduce, in an appendix, the various relevant extracts from the Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa and Purāņas. In fact, some excerpts were collected too. In the meanwhile, an old and independent Ms. of Sanghatilaka's Sanskrit Version of the Dhūrtākhyāna also was found at Patan; and I was tempted to include that also in this edition. When the Prākrit and Sanskrit texts were printed, I learnt that there is a Ms. of the Gujarati Bālāvabodha of the Dhū. in the Govt. collection of Mss. deposited at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona. I got the Ms. and inspected it. Finding that the study of its language would be of special importance in grasping the earlier phases of Gujarāti and western Rajasthāni, I thought it proper to put that also in this Volume. Thus we have, in this edition, the critical text of the original Prākrit Dhûrtākhyāna of Haribhadrasūri of the 8th century, then the metrical Sanskrit version of the same by Sanghatilaka of the 15th century, and also an anonymous rendering in the Lokabhāşă of the 16th or 17th century.
I intended in the beginning to write an Introduction in Hindi or Gujarāti, giving some details about Haribhadra's date and the contents of this work. But when I learnt that this book was prescribed by the University of Bombay in the B. A, course for Ardhamāgadhi, I thought that the edition should contain a thorough study of the work for the benefit of students for whom it was being prescribed. With this idea in mind, I requested my learned friend Dr. A. N. Upadhye, whose study in this connection is both deep and wide, to contribute a critical essay on the Dhūrtākhyāna for this volume. In connection with his original paper on the Apabhramba Dharmapariksā which was submitted to the All-India Oriental Conference, Hyderabad, and of which he sent to me an advance copy, he had already made a close study of the Dhurtākhyāna. It was very kind of him that he willingly and readily acceeded to my request. Though he was occupied with editing various important works, within a comparatively short time, be sent to me
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