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PUBLISHER'S NOTE.
This book removes a longfelt want. The Jainas are a very important, rich and influential community. Many and costly are the cases which they have to fight in Law Courts. But from the lowest Munsiff's Court in India to the most august Judicial Committee of the Privy Council at Whitehall-all the Courts are hampered by the lack of a book which should give the ancient and authoritative law texts of the important Jaina people. The absence of a Jaina Law book has had curious results. In theory, some queer and absurd propositions of Law and History have crept into the law books and law reporis, c.g., that the Jainas are Hindu dissenters and that they have no law of their own, etc. In practice, pure havoc has been played with Jaina rights and customs. Both these have been the playthings of chance, arbitrary findings and ignorant misrepresentations, alike from · high and low. Mr. Justice Jaini in this book makes an earnest effort to set right all these matters.
