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PREFACE BY THE EDITOR
I have great pleasure in presenting S. C. Vidyābhūşaņa's Nyāyāvatāra which had practically two editions at the life time of the author. The first edition appeared in 1909 in Calcutta, and the second from Arrah in 1915. In fact, it was S. C. Vidyābhūşaņa who gave a due honour to Siddhasena's work. My esteemed friend Dr Joydeb Ganguly Shastri, M.A., Ph.D, of Calcutta University, drew my attention to the fact that there was a reprint edition of Nyāyāvatāra published in 1971 from Bombay under the able editorship of Dr A. N. Upadhye. He was also kind enough to hand over his personal copy to me for my use. I am really grateful to him for this piece of information.
Dr Upadhye's edition is a reprint from the second, while ours is a reprint from the first. Though there is hardly any advance in the second edition, I consider that the first edition has still some value. This edition is entirely re-arranged and re-set. Each verse is followed by an extract from the Nyāyāvatāra-vivrti and an English translation and notes. In the introduction an analytical content of the Nyāyā. vatāra culled out from S. C. Vidyābhūṣaṇa's 'A History of Indian Logic' is added for the benefit of the readers. I have also given in the appendix A what S. C. Vidyābhūṣaṇa has written about Siddhasena in his History of Indian Logic. Though this is almost a repetition of what he says in the Introduction to his Nyāyāvatāra, some new pieces of information are also available there. I hope this will also be beneficial to the readers. I have also presented a chart to show how the Jaina Pramāna-Šāstra is related to Jaina Philosophy. As Jaina logic is mainly intended to establish the validity of the nine principles of Jaina philosophy, the doctrines of Jainism are presented here for those who are not fully conversant with the technical terms of Jaina principles. In short, I have tried my best to make this edition handy and useful to the scholars.
My acknowledgments are due to Shri Abhoy Kumar Burman of Sanskrit Book Depot (Pvt) Ltd. for undertaking such a reprint scheme, and to Pandit Madhusudan Vedantashastri of Sanskrit Sahitya Parishat, Calcutta, for going through the galley proofs of this book. All attempts have been made to make this edition free
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