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The following abstract just published before the printing of the Sacred Literature of the Jains is quoted from the Jain Journal Vol-XXVI, No. 4, April, 1992, pp. 21112, for the benefit of the readers.
It is said that Johann Georg Bühler (1837-1898) was more or less the first to open up the rich treasures of the Jaina literature. Bühler acquired a large collection of the Jaina manuscripts for the Royal library at Berlin in the years 1873-1878. This collection of manuscripts by Bühler was the basis which had given Albrecht Friedrich Weber (1825-1901) an impetus in writing the first comprehensive and epoch-making accounts of the literature of the Jainas. More than one hundred years ago, Weber's book in German entitled Über die heiligan Schriften der Jaina included in his Indische Studien (Vol. XVI, 1883. pp. 211-479, and Vol. XVII, 1885, pp. 1-90) was published between 1883 and 1885 covering nearly 358 pages. As the book is so authoritative and at the same time so detailed in giving an account of the sacred writings of the Jainas till that time that it was translated into English by Herbert Wier Smyth in the name of Sacred Literature of the Jains and was published in 15 issues distributed in the five numbers of the Indian Antiquary beginning from Vols. XVII (1888) to XXI (1892). Besides the above, a general survey of the whole Jaina literature was also given by Weber in his Catalogue of the Berlin Manuscripts under the title Verzeichnis der Sanskrit-und-Prakrit Handschriften (Register of Sanskrit and Prakrit Manuscripts) part II, Berlin, 1888 (Jaina literature, MS 1773-1928) and part III, Berlin 1892 (Jaina literature, MS 1929-2027, and MS 2299-2304).
Before Weber, Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1765-1837) noted a few observations on the Jainas and their sects, and gave a little account of Prakrit literature. His two articles - The Sanskrit and Prakrit Language(1801) and The Sanskrit and Prakrit Poetry (1808) created a sensation among the scholars at that time. His Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus (1832) (vide his Essays Vol. I, p. 2801) might be regarded as the starting point of the studies of the Jain sects. Even before Bühler and Weber, Col. James Tod in his Travels in Western India (1839) gave us information about the Jaina Temple Libraries. However, the account of Jaina literature was given first by Weber. . After Weber, some scholars have attempted to write the history of the sacred writings of the Jainas. Moriz Winternitz's (1863-1937) History of Jaina Literature forming the part II of the volume two of his History of Indian Literature translated into English and published by the University of Calcutta in 1933 was a systematic one. Jarl Charpentier's Introduction to his edition of the Uttarādhyayana-sutra (Upsala, 1922) contains an elaborate discussion on the problems of the Agama literature. Hiralal Rasiklal Kapadia's A History of the Canonical Literature of the Jainas (1941) is, in a sense, a monument of scholarship. There are many others in Hindi as well.
Despite the fact that there are books on the Jaina Canonical literature, not a single author has yet surpassed Weber in his treatment of the subject as well as in his analysis of the Agama texts. He is still unique and pioneer in this respect. Even the scholars who write books on Jaina literature do consult Weber every now and then, and always find new materials in it. It is still a treasure house of Jaina literature. As the Indian Antiquary is not easily available at present and at the same time nearly one hundred years have elapsed, there is enough scope to reprint the same for the benefit of the scholars. Hence Weber's Sacred Literature of the Jains is being reprinted here. But as the Romanization of Weber was antiquated, the latest method of Roman scripts with usual diacritical marks are only adopted for easy comprehension and pronunciation.
