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PREFACE
The Ganadharavāda is an important Jaina text in Prakrit. [t is a part of the Višeşā vaśyakabhāşya (gāthās 1549–2024) of Jinabhadra and describes the controversies between Lord Mahavira ind Indrabhūti and other Brahmanical thinkers who after much intellectual discussion were convinced of the truth of Mahāvīra's teaching and joined him as his faithful and devoted disciples and preached his teachings and philosophical views. A number of philosophical topics come up for discussion here and different views and speculations about them are discussed; all other possible alternatives are explained and refuted, and the Jaina view is established. Thus the Gañadbaravāda gives an insight into a number of problems of Indian philosophy from different points of view.
When I was working as Assistant Director and Professor of Sanskrit and Ancient Indian Culture in the B. J. Institute of Learning and Research, Abmedabad, from 1958 to 1961, I was entrusted with the work of translating the Gañadharavada into English and providing an explanation based on Maladhari Hemacandra's Bịhadvștti on it. This work had already been done in Gujarati by Pt. Dalsukhbhai Malavania for the Gujarat Vidya Sabhā (the parent body of the B. J. Institute of Learning and Research) and his book had been published in 1952. Prof. Rasiklal Parikh, Director of the B. J. Institute, and Pt. Sukhlalji Sanghavi and others felt that it was desirable that a similar work be prepared in English also for the wider public of English-knowing readers.
This work is, as said above, based entirely on Maladhari Hemacandra's commentary on the Višeşāvasyakabhāșya. I have also consulted Jinabhadra's svopajña (auto--) commentary and Kotyācārya's commentary. I have derived much help from Pt. Malavania's work in Gujarati which has been the main source of information as regards different topics - historical or otherwise.
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