Jain Legend Vol 3

Author(s): Hastimal Maharaj, Shuganchand Jain, P S Surana
Publisher: Hastimal Maharaj Shugan C Jain P S Surana

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thousands of years. In 1980 AD, the rainy season halt of crya r was in the city of Madras (now Chennai) in southern India. Taking advantage of his presence and guidance, efforts started to research Jainism in southern India. While conducting research, very important and significant information was obtained from Government Oriental manuscript library of Madras University. From Connemara Government library Egmore, significant epigraphic and antiquities of several thousands of papers related to Jainism were obtained. These findings proved very helpful and significant in our research later on. Photocopies of important medieval period aiva texts like' rama a samh ra caritam' etc were obtained.
In spite of such large volume of information, lack of sufficient data about history of Y pan ya congregation which went into obvilion a few centuries earlier was felt deeply. Y pan ya tradition is considered as a very important link between vet mbara and Digambara sects. Therefore in the beginning, it was decided to collect sufficient information about Y pan ya congregation.
The rainy season halt of c rya r was completed in R yac ra. We collected significant information (but not to our complete satisfaction) about Y pan ya congregation from world renowned archaeologists, universities, Jain centres and libraries at Mysore, Krkala,
rava abelagol , M dabidr , Dh raw da etc. However, these helped us in linking the forgotten and non traceable links of the history of Y pan ya tradition. Our history experts felt that the vast literature of Y pan ya congregation's main centre in Karnataka was totally destroyed during the invasions of foreigners (particularly Muslims) in southern India.
Thus we could start publication work only in July 1984 which was completed by venerable Gurudeva c rya r Hast Mala j M.S. himself.
The vast content of 'Jain Dharma k Maulika Itih sa'consisting of over 3600 pages scared most of the monks (male and female alike) and scholars even to look at it. Question of deep study of this valuable contribution of crya r was thus unthinkable. Therefore we felt that an abridged version of his vast corpus of knowledge in easy to understand
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