Niryavaliyasuyakhandha Commentary

Author(s): Srichandra, Royce Wiles
Publisher: Royce Wiles

Page 20

PURPOSE AND PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIZATION
The aim of this compilation is to provide a comprehensive descriptive listing of published editions of the texts usually counted as belonging to the "Canon" of the Svetāmbara Jains. This listing was made primarily as an aid to my PhD research. These pages started out as a hand-list for my own use, in particular so that I would know which editions and which commentaries were available to me here in Canberra, the entries have therefore been compiled firstly from the holdings of The Australian National University Library. In order to present the wider context of published editions and studies I have added references taken from the sources listed above. I have not been able to see a number of important editions but have retained entries for those from other sources. All entries marked with an asterisk are derived from such secondary sources, some such entries still lack diacritics. Although I have tried to make the list reasonably comprehensive, I am sure many editions published in India and elsewhere have escaped me, as will have a number of translations, however, I hope to have registered the most important. The references to existing studies are only those that I have come across while preparing this listing, and no attempt has yet been made to systematically seek out the various articles on each text. Where possible I have also added to the descriptions evaluative comments from scholars. For each text I have arranged information under the following headings (where appropriate): Author: Attributions are indicated where known. Title: For practical reasons I have used the Prākrit forms of the titles for the main headings and given here other forms. The abbreviations cited follow those of the Pune Prākrit dictionary (CCDPL). Content: As a temporary and rough guide I have simply quoted an extract from Winternitz (1933:2). References: For further information, especially on unpublished commentaries. Exegesis: If a commentary or sub-commentary has been published alone, I cite the publication details here. If it has been published with the text edition, I give a cross-reference to the edition listed in the next section. The Jinaratnakośa (JRK) gives considerable information on commentaries, however, because it is based on secondary sources the information is not totally reliable. I have rearranged this information into rough chronological sequence where the dates of commentaries are known. Undated commentaries are then given in alphabetical sequence by author or title. Editions: For each publication I have tried to give a standardized bibliographic description based largely on the title-page. Entries beginning with an asterisk however are taken from secondary sources, the references in square brackets at the end of such an entry indicating those sources. A slash (/precedes a statement of authorial or editorial responsibility. I have tried to distinguish carefully between publishers and printers. Dates: To convert Vikram dates I have subtracted the nominal conversion figure of 57; for Vīra era dates, -526. Part way through creating the entries I decided to give more complete date information to aid identification of editions, this is necessary because some bibliographers cite only Vikram or Vīra era dates. By giving all the original dates from the title-page etc. it will be easier to reconcile cases where different conversion figures are used. Dates with angled brackets, eg. 1969<< >, indicate that publication began in 1969 but has not been completed as far as the information I have is concerned If a date appears within the angle brackets that is the date of the last publication known to have appeared in the set. Dates such as 1980a, 1980b follow the normal pattern of date citation, however a date such as 1960z, means that the work was very likely published in the 1960s but the precise year is not known. Sources: Wherever possible I have extracted information on the sources for the text of each edition.
1 Cross-references: to refer to particular editions I have simply used the abbreviation for the text followed by a full-stop and then the year of publication; eg.
Ayār.1934—is the Ayāranga edition published in 1934; Ayār.partial edition. 1978—is the Ayāranga partial edition published in 1978; Ayār.study. 1964-is the study of the Ayāranga published in 1964.