Prameyratna Kosh

Author(s): Chandraprabhsuri
Publisher: Jain Dharm Prasarak Sabha

Page 4

PREFACE.
The present edition of चन्द्रप्रभ'प्रमेयरत्नकोश is chiefly based on the two following MSS.
A-22 f. x 17 l. s 56 aksaras, dated Samvat 1960; B—24 f. x 17 1 x 54 aksaras, dated Samvat 1954.
Both these MSS. are modern copies of older MSS. and I have obtained them from private libraries in India through Professor Dr. Jacobi, to whose kindness I am indebted if I was enabled to undertake the edition of the work. Indeed, as it seems, the MSS. of the threachtat are very rare in India and the work itself, though quoted in the philosophical Jaina literature and enjoying a great consideration, has not been edited till to-day and has been nearly unknown to the modern Jainas. For instance, it is not quoted by H. L. Jhaverī in his first principles of the Jain philosophy, London 1910 (a treatise on the fundamental tenets of Jainism ), though some chapters of the great bear a direct relation to subjects which have been dealt with in the book of H. L. Jhaverī (see chapt. II-IV on the Agust).
While the text was in the press, I received a transcript (C) of a MS. prepared for the Jain Dharma Prasāraka Sabhā. So far as I can judge comparing this transcript with the two above mentioned copies A and B, I find that C agrees almost entirely with B, so that I come to the conclusion that both the MSS. of which B and C are the copies, derive very probably from the same original. We have therefore two different manuscript traditions, represented one by A and the other by B and C; but the differences between them are not of such a nature, as to make it difficult to establish with certainty the form of the text.
The sitere atat is mentioned by sporta at the end of the chapter on जैनमत in his षड्दर्शनसमुच्चयटीका (p. 265 of my edition in the Bibliotheca Indica ), as a prestanet of the Cvetāmbara Jainas. The book therefore must have enjoyed much reputation even at the time of qurta, since this author