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of Jainism in special but also because they are of invaluable use for the purpose of history construction in general. The Jaina literature affords, a regular mine of information to the antiquarian In support of this statement I shall quote the words of Dr. Barnett who said, "Some day, when the whole of the Jaina scriptures will have been critically edited and their contents lexically tabulated, together with their ancient glosses, they will throw many lights on the dark places of ancient and modern Indian languages and literature."
Inscriptions
It is a true fact that besides her literature India possesses a number of various inscriptions. The inscriptions are peculiarly numerous in the South of India and they are both on stone and copper and written in diverse languages, Sanskrit, Tamil and old Kanarese. Amongst the old Kanarese manuscripts the Jaina ones are numerous. The northern inscriptions written in Sanskrit are both older and superior in interest and among those already known, the Jaina inscriptions are not few in number. It is but natural that the Jaina inscriptions may be of immense value as a source of the history of Jainism, in as much as they contain lists of the Jaina pontiffs and teachers and contribute to the knowing of the geographical migration and progressive extension of the Jainas. In the end I quote the words of Dr. Gue’rinot who writes in his article on Jaina insori
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