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this period that the greater portion of his work has to be assigned.
For in 1915, when he was just forty-eight, there came up, without any warning, the most painful shock to all his hopes and ambitions in the form of a severe attack of paralysis, which might almost have been fatal, and which at least left him permanently crippled in strength and spirit. Even in this weakened and depressed condition he continued to find time for and some solace in his favourite studies, and before the long-feared second stroke, and with it the end, actually came in March 1922, he had the satisfaction of having concluded some very important work, including all that was reqnired for editing the present volume.
It is only to be expected that an active, critical and versatile mind like his should, no sooner it addressed itself to penmanship, find itself unable to confine itself to only one or two subjects. This is evidenced by the wide range of subjects on which he wrote as also by another significant fact that his published work includes a very large proportion of writings in Gujarati, his mother-tongue.
It can however be safely asserted that the most enduring part of his writings is the one that shows the scholar, the research-worker and the learned critic: the expounder of ancient learning the indefatiguable investigator of manuscripts, of Shilâlekhas, of Tâmralekhas and of all inscriptions of an antiquarian interest; and the scholarly enthusiast who delighted in collecting under his roof possibly the best Sanskrit library in Bombay, embracing manuscripts of rare value as well as works of print.
If an arbitrary division be made between his Sanskrit and Gujarati publications, the first that comes up for notice, among the Sanskrit publications, is his edition in 1908 of Nefag
RICTETT FAC, a work composed by a Sanyasi areca TVG pregat being a prose abridgement of factoring of the "renowned scholar and voluminous writer of the 16th century," Appaya Dikshita. Tanasukbaram also contributed a small English intro
duction to this work, which was published by qosa FUOTTA Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
