________________
INTRODUCTION
The press-copy of this edition was colated further with the following two manuscripts :
The Limbdi manuscript of NSD. No 1465 of the Seth Anandaji Kalyanji Jaina Pustak Bhandar. Folios 1-76 complete. (In the printed catalogue of Limbdi manuscript Library, the number of this manuscript is wrongly given. as 1505. This manuscript was obtained on loan by Pandit Dalsukh Malvania while I was working at the L. D. Institute of Indology. It was Pandit Sukhlalji Sanghavi who first mentioned to me the existence of this very beautifully inscribed manuscript.)
The Nagarseth manuscript at the Nagarseth collection, Cat. No. 15203 at the L. D Institue of Indology. Folios 1-30, 21 lines in a each folio: 26.5 x 11 c. m. It contains many corrections in margins.
P-This refers to the variants noted in the footnote of the 1924 edition.
The press-copy of Gunaratna's commentary has been prepared from a single manuscript at the L. D. Institute of Indology: No, 8312 of Muni Punyavijayaji's collection, Cat. serial No 79.
Dating of the three principal manuscripts, M1, M2 and I. O.
Some interesting historical evidence can be collected from the three manuscripts, M1, Ma and I. O.
M starts straightforwardly with NSD text, "Dhvamsita...etc" without any preliminary from the scribe. But the scribe identifies himself as well as his time in the concluding remarks. It ends as follows:
श्रीसंवत् अष्टादशाधिकषोडशतमे वर्षे शिशिरऋती माघे मासि शुक्लपक्षे नवम्यां तिथी शुक्रवासरे एवं समये सूरात्मजेन हीरनाम्ना स्वपठनार्थं तथा परार्थमलेख्यध्ययनसमये । श्रीरामाय नमः । शुभं भवतु ।
Thus it is clear that this manuscript was copied in 1618 Samvat, i e., 1561 A. D., by a student called Hira, son of Sura, for his own study (Svapathanartham) as well as for the sake of others (parartham). The text was copied by the scribe while he was studying NSD (Cf. adhyayanasamaye). This is the earliest of the three principal manuscripts that I have used.
A question naturally arises in this connection. Is this, then, the manuscript that was used by the well-known Jaina scholar (acarya), Śr Hiravijaya, whose biography was the theme of Vijaya-prakasti? The answer to this question has to be in the negative for two reasons:
(a) According to M. D. Desai's historical account of Hiravijaya (see his Gujarati book on the History of Jaina Literature, p. 537), the father of
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
