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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
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Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
17
prabandhas are also introduced by the editor. All such insertions are placed within square brackets I l in order to distinguish the same from the text as reproduced from the Mss.
In the case of Old Gujarati and Präkrit words etc, also the editor has tried to retain the original spelling as far as possible. The same is the case with the Old Guj. and Pkt. verses. Though Die original sources of most of them could not be traced (as they seem to form part of floating lit. or folk-tales!, care is taken to present them in as understandable a form as possible and every word thereof is explained in the Lexicographical Study (Appendix · A').
Names of persons, places etc. are printed in hold types for facility of the readers,
111. The Prabandha Literature
The Dictionary meaning of the term 'Prabandha' is 'a continued or connected narrative or discourse as also any literary work or composition'. As an instance of the cmployment of the term in the former sense may be quoted the pithy line froni Magha's Sisupalavadha II. 73:
arafa
: fut
c';
while its use in the latter sense may be illustrated by the prominent line from the introductory portion of Kalidasa's Mālavikāgnimitra displaying the peculiar manner of the poet's introducing himself to his audience:
.....geant rathermatat estafiz .....
In Dramaturgy the term 'prabandha' denotes a special type of gåna. The fourth Adhyāya oi Nihsa e ka širigadeva's Sangita ainakara (Twelfth century A.D.) is itself named Prabandha-Adhyāya ( Anandāśrama ed, of 1896 A.D., pp. 271-354
To a student of the mediaeval Sanskrit literature, however, the term .prabandha' bears a peculiar tecbuical sense, first of a historical anecdote, so to say, and then of a form of literature allied to the so-called Caritas.
At the very outset of his Prabandhałośa ( 1349 A.1).) Rajasekhara. sûri tries to make a distinction between Caritas and Frabandhas, according to which the Caritas are the life-stories of the Tirthankaras right from Rşa bhanatha up to Mahavira, of (ancient) kings including the mythoicgical Sovereigrs or Cakrins ard of the religious pontiffs up to
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