Prolegomena to Prakritica et Jainica

Author(s): Satyaranjan Banerjee
Publisher: Asiatic Society

Page 52

SCHUBRING: A BRIEF HISTORY OF JAIN RESEARCH
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a method which would result in a readable text where the valuable trend of thought now often concealed would eventually appear in a lucid form. It goes without saying that critical examination and comparison of traditions will remain indispensable. Let it be admitted that the want of controllable oldest manuscripts is often a stumbling stone in the way towards that ideal of a critical edition. Hundreds of Jain works are still preserved in partly subterranean bhāṇḍārs where they were deposited centuries ago, and those precious libraries remained inaccessible since the conservatism of the owners could not overcome their disinclination towards their treasures being published. When Bühler was allowed to have a glance into the baṛā bhāṇḍār of Jaisalmer, he was misled as to the mass of what was preserved there. It was not earlier than a few years ago that a scholarly examination of bhāṇḍär manuscripts became feasible, and our thanks and respects are due to Muniraj Puṇyavijaya for his working towards that noble aim27.
§6. The 'classical' Sanskrit commentary to the Śvetambara cannon represents the climax of a vast scholastic literature. Its predecessors in Prakrit, the Nijjuttis and Cuņņis, were, for a long time, neglected by scholars. We might even say that, in a certain sense, this is still true to-day, for the publications of Cuņņis issued in the course of the last decades do not contain even the slightest illustrative or critical addition, though the merits of Muni Jinavijaya Acharya in laying them before the reader are undisputable. It was nearly half a century earlier (1892) that Leumann, on the ground of his own subtle investigations based not upon prints but upon manuscripts, has shown (ZDMG 46, p. 586) the importance of those voluminous products for not only Jain dogmatics but for the history of literature in general. Unfortunately
27. See Alsdorf in Festschrift Schubring, p. 59f.