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Preface
The present is the first issue of the Nirgrantha, the trilingual annual journal of this Centre, incorporating articles in English, Gujarātī, and in Hindi. In recent decades, several journals that deal with Nirgranthist topics are regularly published in India. The need, however, was for a journal of acceptably good editorial standard, the one also quality conscious at the production level. With this objective in view, we sought and got the coöperation, on editorial side, of Prof. M. A. Dhaky, formerly the Research Professor of Indian Art and Architecture at the L. D. Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad, and for some years the Director (Research) of the Varanasi Center of the American Institute of Indian Studies. Dr. Jitendra Shah, the collaborating editor, is the Director of Sharadaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre in Ahmedabad. The first issue contains articles earlier collected at short invitation-notices, when the style-sheat containing the guidelines had not yet been circulated; some shortcomings were therefore inevitable, the editors though have put in their best efforts to offset the deficiencies. The next issue probably will not have to encounter the difficulties on the style conventions which, hopefully, will be uniform in all articles. I wish to thank, on behalf of the Management of this Centre, all contributing scholars for their learned articles and to the editors for their painstaking labours connected with the production of this issue. This first issue is dedicated to Pt. Dalsukh Malvaniya, the doyen of researchers on the content of the extant Nirgrantha āgamas and āgamic and dārśanic literature of the northern tradition. The preparations for the next issue are at present underway. It has been planned as a dedicatory number to the memory of late Dr. Jagadishchandra Jain, one of the few foremost Indian savants of the Nirgrantha agamas of the past generation. The third issue is designed as a congratulatory number for Prof. Harivallabh Bhayani, a scholar of considerable eminence who for long years have worked and is still working on linguistics and Apabhramśa language and is a sound interpreter of the Prakrit and Apabhramsa words and terms which figure in the narrative literature. He is also a keen searcher of the cultural data from all these sources and has made several rich and significant contributions in that sphere by his articles in Gujarāts as well as in English. We hope, indeed believe, that the Nirgranthologists as well as Indologists in general will welcome this new entry in the field of Indological publications.
Sharadaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre, Ahmedabad-380 004.
Ajay Chimanbhai
Trustee
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