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is not only gigantic but also cumbersome for, in the present state of affairs all the Cūrṇis (as stated by literacy historians) have not come down to us; of the available ones, all are not found in print; the printed ones too are not critical editions--too many hurdles for an individual to remove. But we cannot further ignore this desiderative task. Some institute, or some body of enthusiastic scholars, must come forward, undertake it, plan for it and execute it.
IV
Lastly, a word or two for the equipment and encouragement of freshers and young scholars moving into the province of higher studies and research in Prakrit and Jainology or its district of the Jaina Purāņas and Narrative Literature, which is no doubt rich and varied. But you have to choose your tasks carefully, build your scholarship through sustained hard work and honest industry and achieve them. Hurry and shortcuts in approach in the realm of research would render you dwarf and keep your goals beyond reach. Similarly taking several problems on hand and lingering on without finishing a single one, would bore and disappoint you. One at a time, and that too to be fruitfully completed within a fairly right time, should be the guiding self-disciplinary principle kept before you throughout your career. And lastly may you be tempted by quality rather than quantity in your persuits of higher studies and research, always aiming at a genuine problem-be it a research paper or a doctoral dissertation.
Let me illustrate the lack or sufferings of some of these basic ideals as reflected in my own observations and experiences. On the occasion of the Ujjain Session of the A. I. O. C. (1972), on the last day, we had invited Prof. Alsdorf to our Prakrit and Jainism Section; and in his informal address he passingly remarked that out of about thirty papers presented thereat, only three or four had problems for them in, most of the papers were descriptive and had no true research stuff. This fact was again brought out by Prof. D. D. Malvania on a similar occasion at the Dharwad Session (1976) of the same Conference. ved that more or less the same conditions prevail modestly appeal, to take a serious note of this and existing in whosoever's case, in its bud only. Then,
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