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these important' Councils. Almost all the exegetical literature on the Canon after that final redaction is composed in Western India. Abhayadevasūri ( Itth century A. D.), known as Navārgivrtlikāra, the greatest commentator of the Canon, did his work at Anahilayad Patan, assisted by Dronācārya and a committee of scholars, and that tradition has continued almost to this day. It is but historically appropriate that important projects for the study and interpretation of the Canon should be undertaken in that part of the country, so rich in original material.
At this stage I would like to refer to two other desiderata in the form of reference-work in this branch of leaming. One is a Dictionary of' Jaina Sanskrit' and the other is a comprehensive Dictionary of Prākrit.
Just like the Gathā-Sanskrit of the Buddhist texts, termed by Dr. Edgerton as · Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit', another peculiar type of mixed Sanskrit had been cultivated by medjacyal Jaina writers mostly in Western India, especially in the region where Gujarāti and Rūjasthāni are being spoken. It has been called ' Vernacular Sanskrit..hy Dr. Hertel, as it is an example of a type of literary medium in which Sanskrit. was so to say, vernacularised. The voluminous texts on Jaina mythology like .Hemacandra's 'Trişaşțisalākāpuruşacarita, the Caritras or narratives of the lives of individual Tirthankaras composed by numerous Jaina poets, the Sanskrit commentaries on Canonical texts in Prākrit composed between the 8th and 18th centuries A.D. as also the commentaries by Jaina authors on Classical Sanskrit works--Kavyas and Nāțakas--which were zealously studied and taught by them, the vast Katha-literaAure in prose and verse, the widely cultivated form of historical anecdotes known as Prabandha' and a number of works on
Taina theology, cosmology and allied subjects have been li composed in this 'Jaina Sanskrit'. It is replete with rare and
obsolete words as well as with back-formations. Cases of hyper-Sanskritism are not scarce. Not only a number of words
