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INTRODUCTION.
CXI THE OCCASION OF COMPOSITION.-Hemarāja wrote his commentary on Pravacanasāra, as he says in his pras'asti, at the instance of Kumārapāla, a pious house-holder from Āgrā. Kumārapāla represented to him that, as Samayasāra was already explained in sweet language by Rājamalla, it was necessary that Pravacanasāra should also be explained without delay whereby the religion of Jina might, flourish in all its branches; and requested him to write a Hindi commentary on it and receive the fruit of having glorified Jainism. In the pras'asti on Pravacanasāra-tīkā he pays respects to Shah Jahan. This commentary was completed on Sunday the 5th of the bright half of Māgha in the year 170g which corresponds 1653. A. D. when Shah Jahan was on the throne of "Dellii. His Nayacakravacanika was completed in Samvat 1724 (1668 A. D.) 3
6. THE PRAKRIT DIALECT OF PRAVACANASARA
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.-It is rather premature to attempt an exhaustive grammar of the gathās of Kundakunda fiom his various works, because the various editions of Kundakunda's works, that we have to-day, simply represent readable individual MSS., and can hardly be called critical, as we understand that term to-day. Even the present text of Pravacanasāra is not strictly critical ; it represents, to a great extent, the Prakrit text as preserved by Jayasena in his Sanskrit commentary ; but it has, however, an advantage that it is accompanied by a table of various readings drawn from two independent MSS., one accompanied by the commentary of Amrtacandra and the other by that of Prabhācandra. So, under the present condition of the text of Pravacanasāra, I think it better to give some of the typical and salient features of the dialect used herein than an exhaustive grammatical survey of all the works of Kundakunda or even of Pravacanaszra. It may be that some of my statements will have to be modified, when a critical text of this work is prepared after a faithful and unbiased study of MSS. hailing from different parts of India,
TREATMENT OF VOWELS:--The Sk. vowels, excepting ? i li ai and au, are generally intact; a long vowel before a conjunct is shortened, the
patity remaining the same. There are, however, a few notable changes, * I give here. Of a: mamattr=mamatva (II, 108), nisējja=nişadyā
of ā: metta=mātra (II, 46, 71; III, 17, 38), Bhāsa has the form 17: vihūna=vihīna (III, 13; see also the v. l. I, 7, 17; II, 8); of u:
1 Bhandarkar. Collected works Vol. II p. 224. 2 There 18 & Hindı metrical version of Praracanasūra by Vrodavano. He was born in
samvat 1843. He was an Agravāla of Goyal gotra His father's name was Dharmacandra. He lived in Benares. He has written some works'on Jaina ritual; and
Pt. Premi says that his Chandos'atalce is a model text-book (Premi Ibidem, pp. 22-3). 3 This section 19 reprinted here with a few modifications and additions from the Journal
of the University of Bombay. vol. II, part vi. I am thankful to the Publication Board that granted so kindly my request for permission to reprint this article in the Introduction of Pravacanasra. Printz; Bluāsa's Prālrut (B. P.), p. 5.
