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first publication of the Prakrit Text Society. The Society is busy with the publication or editing of several other Canonical texts. The Sutrakṛtānga Sūtra along with its Niryukti and Curni has been critically edited by Muni Sri Punyavijayaji with the help of the earliest manuscripts on palm-leaf and paper, and more than half of the whole work has been printed. The Dašavaikālika Sutra with a Curņi by Agastyasimhasūri bas been edited by the same scholar and a considerable portion of it has been already printed. This newly discovered Curni is altogether different from the Curņi by Jinadāsagani Mahattara (7th Century A.D.) published at Rutlam about 25 years back. It has been edited with the help of a palm-leaf manuscript at Jaisalmer, copied about the 12th century, and a palm-leaf transcript of the same made about a century later. The editor rightly believes that the Curni of Agastyasimha was ,probably composed before the final redaction of the Canon at " Valabhi, because this Curni gives hundreds of variants of the Sutra, while Haribhadrasuri (8th century A.D.), a comparatively early Sanskrit commentator, clearly mentions that textual variants do not exist. It is evident from this Curni that its author had before him an earlier commentary, most probably in Prakrit. If Agastyasimha flourished carlier than the fifth century A.D., as suggested above, then this is all the more noteworthy, as it gives some idea of the early exegetical literature, a mass of which has been lost several centuries back.
7:
I am in a position to announce that the Prakrit Text Society is preparing, from among otlier Canonical texts, the editions of Acaranga Sutra with its Curni and Sanskrit commentary by Silanka, Nandi Sūtra with Curni and Sanskrit commentaries by Haribhadrasuri and Malayagiri, Anuyogadvära Sūtra with Cūrņi and Sanskrit commentaries by Haribhadrasuri and Maladhari Hemacandra, Samavāyānga Sūtra with the commentary by Abhayadevasuri, and three important Cheda Sutras with Cūrnis, viz., Daśāśrutaskandha, Bṛhat Kalpa Sūtra and Vyava bāra Sūtra, and satisfactory progress has been achieved.
