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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
PREFACE
xiii
Mr. R. D. Banerji says (JBORS, Vol. III, Part IV, p. 487) that he prepared, in 1917, two inked impressions of the Hāthi-Gumphā inscription. One of these two must be the impression reproduced in JBORS, Vol. III, Part IV, p. 472, Plate I. Mr. Jayaswal has, on the other hand, published a plate (JBORS, 1927, Vol. XIII, Parts III-IV) reproducing photographs of select portions of two impressions, which are said to have been prepared by Mr. Madhosarup Vats. And I had the privilege of separately examining the two impressions, one of which resembled the impression reproduced in JBORS, 1917, and the other resembled the extracts from one of the impressions claimed to be of Mr. Vats and reproduced in JBORS, 1927. Although I failed to unravel the mystery which shroud these impressions, I was very happy to find that one of the impressions examined by me clearly showed my reading of ceca-yathi-adhasatikam instead of ca coyathi agasatikam (I. 15), to be quite correct. As for the reading (silā)-thambhāni ca cetiyāni ca kārāpayati (I. 14), I have largely relied upon a small plate published by Mr. Jayaswal in JBORS, 1918. As for the rest of the new readings and interpretations, grounds have been stated in proper places.
A p'ate prepared by patching up select portions of two impressions, such as one published by Mr. Jayaswal in JBORS, Dec., 1927, is bound to be misleading. The sounder procedure in a matter like this is to compare the results obtained from the study of both after carefully studying each of them separately. So far as published estampages go, one has still to place greater reliance upon one published previously by Mr. Jayaswal in JBORS, Vol. III.
I could not but congratulate myself to be able, when the printing of the book of notes was far in progress, to check the errors into which I was at first led by the symmetry of the reading of the text of the inscription of Kbāravela's chiefqueen Hathisāhasa papotasa dhutunā offered by Indraji and
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