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(shortly before the outbreak of war) two copies of this text in the sanskrit college of Benares. Would it not be possible to one of your laymen to grant the sum necessary for copying them. But the copyist's should be told to copy not only the agtfrat; but also the original capyists colophon. You told me that you have with you a third copy of the sanskrit text. It is, of course, not sure that all the three Mss. contain the same text; but even if they do, it would be most important for me to have them all three. You know that the great Hemacandra quotes already a Sukasaptati. Perhaps one of the Mss. contains this old text, but even if none does I should like to have as much Mss. material as possible. Dr. Schmidt's edition is a quite uncritical meddling of different texts which in part (and even in its sanskrit parts) he did not understand. I have quite minuately studied his critical notes and have written a very comprehensive paper on it.
The result of this examination is quite sure, viz, that all his Mss. are derived from some metrical Jain version which must have been a Sukadvisaptatika apd must have been composed in Gujarati. You know that there is a persian version of the book which has the title alatalar and which, though a Turkish version, has migrated to Europe. In my book on the Panchatantra I have shown that the author of the Persian version used a Jain version of the work. It would greatly enhance the importance of Jain literature, if we could find in Jain literature, the original of the Persian version. It has been proved by other scholars, that a Bauddha and a Brahmanical book have been widely spread during the middle ages, over Asia and Europe. But no such book has as yet been detested in Jain literature. Notwithstanding it is my firm conviction
that most of the numerous stories common to India and to Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat www.umaragyanbhandar.com
