Nyayavatara

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Sanskrit Book Depot P Ltd

Page 26

PREFACE ( First Edition )
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Professor Peterson, in his Fifth Report on the Search for Sanskrit Manuscripts in the Bombay Circle, mentions a Jaina Sanskrit work called Nyāyāvatāra by Siddha Sena Divākara. A manuscript of this work, together with a commentary on it called Nyāyāvatāra-vivști, was kindly procured for me from a private library in Bhavanagar, Bombay, by the well-known Svetāmbara Sādhus, Muni Dharmavijaya and Indravijaya.
Seeing that the Nyāyāvatāra is a very important work, being the earliest known Jaina treatise on Pure Logic, I have, in the present volume, attached the text of it with extracts from its verbose commentary. I have also included in the volume an English translation which I prepared for the "Journal” of the Indian Research Society of Calcutta. The notes which I have added to elucidate the translation are based on the commentary already referred to.
I acknowledge with thanks that Mr. C. Russel, M.A., Principal, Patna College, has kindly helped me with a number of suggestions while the translation was passing through the press.
My thanks are also due to Rai Sarat Chandra Das, Bahadur, C.I.E., at whose instance I undertook this work, and who, at the suggestion of the Government of Bengal, forwarded its advance proof to the International Congress of Orientalists held at Copenhagen in August 1908. It was kindly accepted by that learned body as a contribution on the Jaina philosophical literature.
SATIS CHANDRA VIDYABHUSANA
PRESIDENCY COLLEGE,
CALCUTTA. February, 1909.