Jainas in History of Indian Literature

Author(s): Jinvijay
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 12

PREFACE
EV
TURE" in its final form. This essay was first written before about 1920, although certain improvements and alterations were made in it afterwards. I may mention here with a certain amount of pride that Dr. WINTERNITZ welcomed the new theory about the date of Haribhadra Sūri which I had formulated in my Sanskrit essay entitled "हरिभद्राचार्यस्य समयनिर्णयः" and which I had presented to the First Oriental Conference held at Poona in 1919 (Ref. footnote on p. Io of this book). Following him Dr. JACOBI also had accepted this theory and wholeheartedly supported it revising his own.
The essay attempts to give only a brief outlinear-view of Jain literature, but its account of the various principal and subordinate parts of Jain literature is at once authoritative and mature. As such it is bound to serve as a highly useful guide to a student of the subject before he proceeds to the detailed analysis of the exhaustive account of Jain literature in the" History of Indian Literature".
I may parenthetically add that as a matter of fact even the exhaustive chapter in the “History of Indian Literature" gives but a sketchy occount of the enormous wealth of Jain literary genius. Its vastness and variety is staggering. Dr. WINTERNITZ has given prefatory descriptions of the few Caritas, Kathās, and other forms of literature in addition to the usually known canonical works and treatises bearing on them. There are hundreds, nay, thousands, other literary works of which Dr. WINTERNITZ has made no mention and had obviously no knowledge, which are still lying hidden in the Jain Bhandars awaiting the birth of another WINTERNITZ who would work on them with patience and industry. Indeed for a correct portrayal of the history of Indian civilisation during the last 2000 years it would be quite impossible to think of any other literature which could produce vast, varied and rich materials at all comparable to the hidden treasures of Jain literature.