Jain Granth Prashasti Sangraha 01

Author(s): Parmanand Jain
Publisher: Veer Seva Mandir Trust

Page 8

Indian and bear close relation with earlier and contemporary literature. This is evident from the works of authors like Pujyapada and siddhasena, Akalanka and Hemacandra etc. Another peculiarity about these authors is that very often they supply a good deal of information about their predecessors and contemporaries, monks, laity and princes. In some cases they also mention the date and place of composition. Such details occur at the beginning of the works or at the end of them generally in an independent section known by the name Prasasti.
A historian of literature is not only interested in the contents of the works but also in the biographic details about the authors, and most of the Jaina authors mention at least some facts about themselves. This is a phenomenon rare in early Indian literature, and hence all the more coveted by historians. Even when books were still in Mss. And not published, various oriental scholars like Bhandarkar, Peterson, Keilhorn and others published in their Descriptive catalogues of Sanskrit and Prakrit Mss. Those extracts from the beginning and close of a work which give some inforniation about the author and about the work. These passages have been of immense value for the historian of literature; and many paragraphs in the History of Indian Literature by Winternitz are based on such excerpts given by Peterson and others.
The Mss. of Sanskrit and Prakrit works in Jaina Bhandaras are rich in Prasastis; some of them belong to the authors themselves and others to the donors etc. of the Mss. : in either case they have a documentary value. Besides the Descriptive Catalogues, some inde