In Search of the Original Ardhamagadhi English Translation

Author(s): K R Chandra, N M Kansara, Nagin J Shah, Ramniklal M Shah
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

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REVIEWS AND OPINIONS ON ĀCĀRĀNGA
The editing of a Jaina Āgama text - be it Śvetāmbara or Digambara is one of the most difficult tasks of Prakrit scholars. For the last more than one hundred and fifty years, both occidental and oriental,scholars have been trying their best to edit Jaina Āgama texts faithfully and correctly, and for this, they have accepted some principles for the Prakrit literature, and the Jaina Agama texts, in particular. Though J.Stevenson translated the Kalpasūtra along with the Navatattva (London, 1848), he did not mention the MSS from which he had translated the text. Later on, a critical edition was prepared by Jacobi (Leipzig, 1879). At present, though we find some discrepancies with the printed editions of the Kalpasūtra, it is, shll a kind of the earliest reference to the Kalpasūtra used by many scholars. But the best edited text of the Jaina canonical literature, as far as we know, is A.Weber's edition of the Bhagavati- sūtra. (Ein Fragment der Bhagavati, in ABA.1865 (pp.367-444) and 1866 (pp.155352).
It was as early as 1865-66, Weber realized certain orthographic difficulties of the manuscript for selecting a particular reading. As a result, in his introduction he has laid down certain principles for editing Jaina canonical texts. Later on, Hermann Jacobi (Ācārāngasūtra, London, 1882), Pischel (Deśīnāmamālā, Bombay, 1880) and many others have all faced the problems of editing Prakrit texts in general, and Jaina Agama texts, in particular. In modern times Hiralal Jain, A.N.Upadhye, Dalsukh Bhai Malvania, Harivallabh C. Bhayani and many others have edited Jaina Agama and Prakrit texts and encountered insurmountable difficulties in selecting certain readings for the texts whenever they have collated a text from some manuscripts.
When the world of Prakrit has been wavering for a long time to find out the correct and faithful reading of the Āgama text, it was, at that time the edition of K.R.Chandra's Ācārānga. the first chapter of the first Srutaskandha appeared in the horizon a few months ago. Dr. Chandra has been working on this text for a long time, and as a prelude to
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