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INTRODUCTION
Of the six Mas, described above, Ba and Mrs have only the Prakrit text, La, Gus und Pa are accompanied by Subhacundra's Sanskrit commentary and S by Jayacandra's Hindi Vacanjka. Ba is the oldest Ms, of our group being written in Samvut 1603, und significantly indeed older than Subhacapdra's commentary which was completed in Şavat 1613. Next in age comes Vs. Ma which too has vuly the Prākrit text. Pa is written in San. 1785, Sa in Suro. 1880 and Lr in Sam. 1894; Ga bears no date, but it may be as old us, if not older than, Pa from Poona.
So far ay the Prakrit text is cancerned, and it is for this that our collation has been thorongh, Bx occupies a unique position by virtue of its age though some of its readings are corrected under the influence of the text adopted by Subhacundra for his conmentary. It shows Nonie striking comuion readings with Max which obviously go back to a common andex ulder than Subhacandra Lux, Go and Pa show close uffinity, all of them being accompanied by the Sanskrit commentary. The text in Ims is nearer the one adopted by Subhacandr whom Jayacundru follows.
The Prikrit text is constituted after collating five Mss., Bix, Ma, La, Su und Ga, described above., Variants arising out of scribal slips, presence or absence of inca, send x, ha and 2 aard ma ora or pu, i ori at the end of a guida, o and ur, ooh And als ete, found in u stray unner in some Ms, or the other are not recorded. However, no reading which has even the remotest dialectal signification is ignored. For fucility of understanding hypheng. sure wided to sopurate words in a compound expression, Some emendations are suggested in square brackets in the foot-notes. Grammatical forms are not tampered with for motrical needs : 80 Present 3rd p. sing. termination would be i, though at the end of juicla it may pronounced long. The (ukvīru je shown when somo Mss. give it, but it is shown us annusika when its pronunciation is metrically short,
The text of the Sanskrit commentary is constituted primarily with the help of two Mag., La and Go, wlzich between themselves show variations about samdhi and punctuations etc. with which intelligent copyists appear to have taken sotme liberty. The readings are noted only when they show fundamental variants affecting the contents. What is agreed urxon by both the Mss. is accepted, and in cases of crucial difference, the readings are decided after vonsulting the Ms. Pa. The rules of Sardhi are not rigor ously enforced, Sanskrit expressions, if found in both the M8s., are not tampered with, even if they violate the recogaised granatical standard : obviously, strange forms and expressions are met with here and there. Ga
