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and expressions from the regional spoken dialects but also their peculiarities of syntax etc. havc.crept in in a very natural way. One would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to grasp thc proper sense without some knowledge of the regional language : especially in its older form and also of the Präkrits. All the Jaina technical terms appear in their Sanskrit garb, and convcy meanings entirely unknown to the current Sanskrit dictionarics. Dr. M. Bloomfield was the first scholar to draw attention to the importance of the study of this subject in his paper entitled 'Some aspects of Jaina Sanskrit' published at Gottingen in 1923 in the Festschrift Jacob Wackernagel (pp. 220-230 ). Dr. Hertel in his edition (pp. 291-295:) of the Pañcākhyāna of Pūrņabhadra. (1199 A.D.) published in the Harvard Oriental Serics and Dr. Upadhye in his Introduction (pp. IOI-IIC) to the Bșhatkathākośa of Harişeņa ( Ioth century A.D.) publishcd in the Singhi Jaina Series, have given lists of words peculiar to Jaina Sanskrit in their respective texts. The latc Mr. Mohanlal D. Desai, in his monumental Gujarāti reference-book, Jaina Gurjara Kavio, pt. I ( Introduction, pp. 227-234), las presented a small list of peculiar words and expressions from the Prabandhacintānani of Merutunga ( 1305 A.D.) and has discussed in brief the salicnt features of the language. Myself and one of my colleagues at the Oriental Institute, Mr. J. P. Thaker, have begun work on a series of papers entitled • Lexicographical Studies in Jaina Sanskrit', and the first instalment rccording in alphabetical order about 700 words from the Prabandhacintāmaņi with brief annotations has appeared in the Journal of the Oriental Institute, December 1958, and a vocabulary from the Prabandhakośa of Rajasekhara ( 1349 A.D.) will soon follow. Only after a large number of vocabularies are prepared by different scholars from a varicty of texts we will have cnough material to compilc a Dictionary, which is badly required to understand properly a very large scction of Sanskrit literature, which probably gives a fair idea of the spoken Sanskrit of mcdiacval times.
