________________
Foreword.
It is with considerable satisfaction and relief on account of my continued ill health that I present my third volume of Jain Inscriptions in the hands of those who feel especially interested in the history and antiquity of the Jains. The inscriptions collected in this volume are all from Jaisalmer, a place of unique importance as a great store-bouse of the activities of the Swetambara Jains.
For a considerable time I had been planning to pay a visit to this important place, My imagination was naturally stimulated by various writers and the glowing references to the richness of the materials stored there. Dr. Buhler was the first to bring to light before the general body of sekolars that the great Jain Bhandar, deposited in the Jain temple within the fort of Jaisalmer, contains a large number of ancient and important palm-leaf manuscripts which would require years of hard work even in merely cataloguing them, Dr. Hermann Jacobi, the great German scholar, also visited the place in his company. It was late Prof. S. R. Bhandarkar, who had beeu there in his official capacity, and who gave us a more detailed account and list of manuscripts of the several Bhandars both in the city and within the fort. Extracts from Dr. Buhler's letter (1874) aud from Prof. S. R. Bhandarkar's Report (1909) will be found in Appendix A and B, and I draw attention of my readers to the same.
Professor Bhandarkar in his Report for 1904-05 and 1905-06 published in his appendix I, portions of only 6 Jain inscriptions, which he collected there. Lately, Mr. Chimanlal Dahya Bhai Dalal, M. A. Sanskrit Librarian, Baroda Central Library visited the place with the object of cataloguing the manuscripts of the Bhandars and collected several inscription. of the various temples both at Jaisalmer and at Lodarya. Unfortunately he died before he could publish his work, Pundit Lalchandra Bhagwandas Gandhi, Jain Pundit, Central Library, Baroda, published the posthumous work, and 22 inscriptions
"Aho Shrut Gyanam"
