History of Canonical Literature of Jainas

Author(s): Hiralal R Kapadia
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre

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FOREWORD
I feel immense pleasure in publishing the History of Jaina Canonical Literarure by Prof. Hiralal Rasikdas Kapadia by this Centre. Prof. Kapadia was a profound scholar of the Nirgrantha history and doctrine. His writings usually reveal insightful studies. Because of some incomprehensible reasons, he has largely, and inexplicably, remained relatively an obscure figure to the research community engaged in Jainistic studies. His books and papers-a large number are in Gujarati (his native tongue)-however are illuminative and useful in the Jaina research field. As it happened, his works for long years are not available, most of which even forgotten and not taken notice of or referred to. Among those valuable works, the History of Jaina Canonical Literature can be considered as of sterling importance. Some of the discussions done, determinations made, and side-lights cast in this book are even today relevant. Because this bock was for several decades out of stock, we of this Centre decided to reprint it. The printing errors in the original edition have been corrected as per author's own errata and next has been nicely published with small modifications in layout.
Shri Vikram Makwana and Shri Akhilesh Mishra had given fruitful assistance in producing the computerized version and Kumari Arpanaben Shah and Shri Chandraprakash Shah at the production level of this book. Shri Naranbai Patel carefully read through the proofs. All of them are on this Centre's staff. I sincerely wish to thank them all.
Jitendra Shah
Director