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प्राकृतसर्वस्वम् ।
authors as well as from works which are not extant. A synthetic approach to this interesting subject has been given in the fourth section. Some untraced passages have also been traced which are marked with asterisks.
The fifth and last section is devoted to the source and importance of PS. Mk having composed his grammar as late as the middle of the sixteenth century, had a number of works at his command for consultation. He frankly admits to have consulted such works in the beginning of his grammar. Besides these there is reason to believe that he had also known some works of authorities whose names have not been mentioned. This point has been carefully dealt with in this section. That he has made an outstanding contribution to the field of Prakrit studies has been duly emphasised.
Besides the introduction, text and footnotes this edition also consists of six more important items. There are two appendices one showing the list of references of Mk to unnamed authors of whom some have been conjectured and the other giving a list of the Ganapăthas of the author. There is another appendix giving the reading of all the Sūtras of Mk in versified form. In addition to these an index of Sutras and a glossary of Prakrit words with their Sanskrit equivalents have also been given. The sixth one is the bibliography which has also been furnished in this work. In spite of careful supervision, some printing mistakes could not be avoided and therefore an errata has also been added to the work.
5. Acknowledgements.
Before I conclude, it is my pleasant duty to acknowledge my debt to various persons and institutions. The desirability of bringing out a critical edition of PS was first suggested to me as early as 1958 by my esteemed teacher Professor Dr. K. B. TRIPATHI, M.A., B.L., Ph.D. (London) while I was working as a lecturer in the Ravenshaw College, Cuttack. But due to certain handicaps I could not undertake the work immediately, and while serving at Fakir Mohan College, Balasore, I started collecting material in
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