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INTRODUCTION
Pt. Nathuram Premi's name is quite familiar to the student of Hindi literature, and the Orientalist knows him as the General Editor of the Māņikachandra D. Jaina Granthamālā which has issued some forty volumes containing unpublished Jaina works in Prākrit and Sanskrit and in which are lately published the magnificent volumes of Nyāyakumudacandra of Prabhācandra edited by Pt. Mahendrakumar and the Mahāpurāņa of Puspadanta edited by Dr. P. L. Vaidya.
It was at the close of the last century that Oriental Scholars got access to the Jaina Bhandāras. Due to the efforts of some Provincial Governments many Jaina Mss. were brought to light: some of them were welcomed by European Universities that were taking keen interest in Indological studies and many others were collected and catalogued in India by experts. So far as Western India is concerned, the Reports prepared by Bhandarkar, Peterson and others contained such a rich harvest of new material that many scholars came to be interested in the study of Jaina literature and chronology as a part of Indian literature and history. Complaints were already being made against Indian literature in general that it was wanting in historical facts about the authors and their dates; but the details about many Jaina authors and their contemporaries and predecessors brought to light by Bühler, Bhandarkar, Peterson etc. from literary sources and by Rice, Narasimhachar and others from epigraphic sources were not only reliable but proved also to be valuable landmarks in Indian history and literature. The various details about Jaina Nyāya
