Laghuprabandhsangrah

Author(s): Jayant P Thaker
Publisher: Oriental Research Institute Vadodra

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the present volume would not have taken the shape in which it is being presented now. My foremost thanks are due to Dr. B. J. Sandesara, the Director of our Institute. I had the privilege of running up to him every now and then for guidance and he always encouraged me by spending his precious time in discussions not only on vital points but also on certain minute points. In fact, it was he who entrusted to me the task of editing this work. I am also grateful to him for taking the trouble of writing a Foreword to the present work.
I am equally grateful to Dr. U. P. Shah, Deputy Director and General Editor and Head of the Rāmāyaṇa Department of the Institute, who also was always happy to guide and enlighten me on my problems whenever I approached him. I am highly indebted to my worthy colleague Sri J. S. Pade Šāstri, who has been the witness of my work and worries during my researches on the present text and who was kind enough to spare time for going through every line of the press-copy of the text, the Introduction and the Appendices occasionally offering valuable suggestions. I had the pleasure of holding occasionally interesting discussions on different topics concerning my researches with such local scholars and friends as Pt. L. B. Gandhi, Retired Jaina Pandita of the Oriental Institute, Dr. R. N. Mehta, Head of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History and Dean, Faculty of Arts of our University, Dr. A. N. Jani, Head of the Department of Sanskrit in the Faculty of Arts, and Pt. B. L. Shanbhogue, Research Officer in the Oriental Institute (now retired ), to all of whom I express here my deep feelings of gratitude. I am equally thankful to my learned colleague Dr. S. D. Parekh, with whom I discussed some points regarding the Vikramādityapañcadanda-cchatra-prabandha and who so kindly lent to me his personal copy of his typed Thesis in Gujarāti entitled "A Critical Edition of Pañca-danda-ni Vārtā of an Unknown Gujarāti Prose-writer ( Before 1682 A.D.)” which I was allowed to keep with me for several months.
I am also grateful to Sri M. M. Desai, Assistant Lecturer in Gujarāti in the Faculty of Arts, for preparing for me a very accurate, decent and careful
y of Ms. G. which was the main codex. His knowledge of Sanskrit helped him considerably in deciphering the readings of this early fifteenth-century Ms. written throughout in Prşthamátrās.
I would fail in my duty if I do not remember with gratitude the affectionate services of Sri P. H. Joshi, M.A., formerly Research Assistant in the Manuscript Department of the Oriental Institute and now Proof-Reader in the Rāmāyaṇa Department, and my son Sri Himāmśu J. Thaker, a student of B.E. IV (Metallurgy ), both of whom helped me occasionally in preparing the Index to the Introduction. Śrī Himāmśu also helped me considerably in the tedious task of putting down, in the press-copy of the Introduction and the Appendices,