Paia Sadda Mahannavo

Author(s): Hargovinddas T Seth
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Page 5

PUBLISHER'S NOTE
The present Pāia-sadd-mahaņņavo or "The Great Ocean of Prākrit Words' is a comprehensive Prākrit-Hindi Dictionary compiled by Pt. Hargovind Das Trikam Chand Sheth and was first published slightly less than six decades ago in 1928. It is a pioneer work, being the result of several years' single-minded devotion and indefatigable labour on the part of the compiler, to whom the students and scholars of the Prākrit language will ever remain grateful.
The work is of immense value since in addition to serving the needs of the students of Prākrit it has also proved very much helpful to researchers in understanding Old-Hindi words of obscure origin as well as all the other languages of the Middle Indo-Aryan group including Old-Rajasthani, Old-Gujarati, Old Marathi, Old-Bengali, Old-Maithili etc.
After its first appearance in 1928 the work remained out of print for a number of years when its rare copies were sold at fabulous prices-a fact further attesting to its importance, utility and popularity. To fulfil a pressing need a long awaited second edition was brought out by the Prākrit Text Society in 1963 and in view of a persistent demand this reprint is being issued after a long gap for the benefit of the interested scholars.
The Publishers hope that the work will inspire talented scholars for further intensive research in the field culminating, so we wish, in a more comprehensive dictionary of the language including also the cognate Apabhramsa language and literature.
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