________________
144
cle. I have indeed the intension to enter gradually into it, and so much more so as my respected teacher, Professor Jacobi, has again and again directed my attention to the beauties of the Jainistic narrative literature, to the highly developed prosestyle and to the fact that the religious representations of the Jains had carried the light of deliverence and redemptions into a world of superstition and darkness, in short how they achieved to do in India a culture-work of immense importance.
I hope to further my studies so as to he able to go to India myself within 2 or 3 years, and if your rich knowledge would be my adviser, this would promote my studies and my resear. ches of the Jainistic culture to a degree, I could never attain here in Europe. As you may perhaps be aware the text of the Vajjalagga, of which I am the editor. will appear in the Bibliotheca Indica. The author of this anthologi of Prakrit verses is Jayavallabha, a Svetambara Jain. My edition contains 795 verses. In the manuscript which, thanks to the intervention of Prof. Jacobi, I owe to the kindness of JainaVidya-Visharadacharya Shri Dharma Vijaya Suri, there are a great number of verses which are not contained in the Vulgasa. I would therefore suggest sending you about 100 of these unedited verses to be published in the special number of the Dipalika. I trust these verses will claim the vivid interest of the educated world. They serve as a proof moreover of the culture-work done by the jains, in not only coining thoughts of their own, and creating a literature of their own, but collecting jelously and thus saving many treasures of literature from oblivion,
Awaiting with great interest your kind reply, believe me, dear sir, yours most respectfully,
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
JULIUS LABER www.umaragyanbhandar.com
