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prabandhas are also introduced by the editor. All such insertions are placed within square brackets [] 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 the 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 bold types for facility of the readers.
III. 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 employment of the term in the former sense may be quoted the pithy line from Màgh a's Siśupālavadha II. 73:
sta fosa FRFT: gaat
TET:';
while its use in the latter sense may be illustrated by the prominent line from the introductory portion of Kālidāsa's Mālavikāgnimitra displaying the peculiar manner of the poet's introducing himself to his audience:
..... aftag Tat Hanat onafamatai garurafata
.....
- In Dramaturgy the term prabandha' denotes a special type of gāna. The fourth Adhyāya of Nihsan ka śārnga deva's Sangitaratnākara (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 technical 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 Prabandhakośa ( 1349 A.D.) Rājasekha ra. sûri tries to make a distinction between Caritas and Prabandhas, according to which the Caritas are the life-stories of the Tirthankaras right from Rşa bha nātha up to Ma há vira, of (ancient ) kings including the mythological Sovereigns or Cakrins and of the religious pontiffs up to
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