________________
124
INTRODUCTION
Muni Shri Punyavijayaji speak highly about his scholarship. Thus I know him as a scholar of very high caliber and critical acumen.
The gist of what is said about Kalyanavijayaji in the Prakāśakiya to the abovementioned edition is as follows: We strongly desired to place as early as possible the printed copy of this work in the lotushands of Kalyanavijayaji who brought the work to light. But to our great sorrow, the desire remained unfulfilled as that great giant scholar of history had passed away. Of course, we derived some satisfaction from the fact that some printed formats were presented to him a month before his death and he expressed his real pleasure to see them.
From this readers will believe that Kalyanavijayaji must have read the printed formats the number of which must have been more than two.
Rathodji has accepted corrupt readings that do not fit in the metre, on account of his inability to understand the correct readings yielded by the manuscripts. Moreover, he has accepted the corrupt readings on account of his not understanding the Prakrit words occurring in the text. Instances of both these types of corrupt readings accepted by him, occurring in gāthās 5 to 209 are noted by us here in this introduction. Of them many are such as would not have remained undetected by Kalyanavijayaji. In short, taking into consideration our note on the corrupt readings accepted in the Jalore edition, the critical readers and scholars will be puzzled as to the truth of the statement occurring in the ‘Prakāśakiya' of that edition to the effect that Kalyanavijayaji has gone through some printed formats and expressed his inner satisfaction.
In this context, it is noteworthy that Muni Jambuvijayaji, a great internationally renowned scholar, went to Ahor (Rajsthan) to pay respects to Kalyanavijayaji in the bright half of the month of Mārgasirşa of the year 2029 V.S. ( 1973 A.D.) when Kalyanavijayaji's mental condition was so dull that he could not recognise the person known to him. Jambuvijayaji himself has given me this information. This fact makes us ponder over the question as to how much deeply and closely Kalyanavijayaji could go through the concerned formats. If his mental condition were such as he would have really examined critically the printed formats, then the explanation Rathodji would have secured of the knotty places in the Prakirnaka from him would have been more clear and cogent than the one he has secured from Rev. Hastimalji, this is my humble belief. If his mental condition were so deteriorated that he could not recognise the person intimately known to him, then there arises a question, for us to consider, as to whether he could
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org