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INTRODUCTION
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whole of the Uttarapurana being written by his disciple Gupabhadra and completed in 820 of the Saka era, i. e., in 898 A. D., at Varkāpura, under the patronage of Lokäditya, a feudatory of Akālavarşa alias Krşpa II (880-914 A. D.) This Mahāpurāna is written in Sanskrit, and printed twice, first at Kolhapur with a Maräthi translation by Kallappa Niţve and again at Indore with a Hindi translation by Pandit Lalaram Jain. It is written from the point of view of the Digambara Jains.
The second known work on the subject is the present work and belongs to the Digambara sect of the Jains.
The third work is the Trişaşçiśalā kāpuruşacarita by Hemacandra. It is a Śvetāmbara work and is written in Sanskrit. It is one of the last works of Hemacandra and so may have been written about 1170-72 A. D. It was published by the Jaina Dharma Prasāraka Sabhã of Bhavnagar in 1905-9, and a reprint of it is being issued at present.
The Jain Granthāvali published in 1965 of the Vikrama era, i. e, in 1907–8 records three works named Mahāpuruşacarita on page 229. One of them is by Silācārya (circa 925 of the Vikrama era, i. e. 888 A. D. ), is written in Prakrit and its Mss. are said to be deposited in the famous Patan Bhandar No. 4 and also at Jesalmer Bhandar. The same book mentions another work on the subject in Prakrit by Amarasűri on the authority of Bphafsippapika. It mentions a third work in Sanskrit on the theme by Merutu nga, Mss. of which are deposited in two Bhandars at Patan and also at Ahmedabad.
THE GLOSS ON THE CONSTITUTED TEXT The reader will notice that the bottom portion of the printed text is divided into two part. The first part, separted from the text by a wavy line gives the variants found in the Mss. or recorded in the margin of Mss, and also in the Tippapa of Prabhācandra. The second part, separated from the first part by a double line, gives a short gloss on the text in Sanskrit. I have culled it from the marginal notes in Mss. G, K, M and P, and also from the Tippapa of Prabhācandra. In selecting the gloss for this purpose I have kept in mind the difficulties which a reader is likely to meet with while going through the text, and I hope that if the reader is equipped with a good knowledge of the Sanskrit language and literature and some elementary knowledge of the grammar of the Prakrit and Apabhramśa dialects, he wil be able to understand the text easily with the help of this gloss. Extracts from Prabhācandra's Tippapa, where they appeared to be interesting but rather extensive to be accommodated at the bottom of the text are given in the notes at the end. I hope this method
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