________________
V. M. Kulkarni
scholars have emended the readings without consulting MSS helonging to different groups and without taking into account the different traditions of interpretation. Copyists, not fully conversant with the old script, committed mistakes in copying the MSS written in old script and thus corrupted the text. Sometimes sectarian zeal is responsible for expunging passages from the text without MS evidence. Muni Punyavijaya, one of the three editors of the present edition, who devoted his entire life to the study of the Jain agamas and commentaries on them such as niruktis, cūrnis, tikās, avacūrnis, ţippaņakas, Wilis and thā5?os ard possessed long experierce in the field of critically editing Jain agama texts evolved principles of textual criticism to be followed in critically editing the tests in the Jaina-Agama-Series. These principles are :
(1) Use of old palm-leaf MSS. (ii) Use of critically corrected commentaries on agamas such
as cīrņi, tikā, aractīri, tıpranaka etc. (iii) Use of quotations from the āgamas and also from their
commentaries, (iv) Comparison with the sūtra-pātha found in the other agamas. (w) Discerning wrong emendations made by commentators
and'or by modern scholars. (vi) Discerning mistakes made by copyists.
The editors, judiciously applying these principles present in this volume the critical text of Nandi and Anuyogadvāra sūras which form the cūlikā, as it were, to the entire śruta. It would scen sirange that the editors begin with the end. But their explanation is quite convincing and satisfactory. The Nandı falls in the anga-bāhya class. Normally, it should occupy a place subsequent to the aigas. But on account of its extraordinary position in the whole body of the āgama texts, it is placed first. It has secured the place of margalācarana in the beginning of the study of agamas. So the editors too accord it the first place not only in this volume but in the entire
