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N M KANSARA
In his Hindi Introduction, the editor has given an account of the manuscript he has utilized, the gist of the narrative in this epic, the details found in the Grantha Prasasti of the Ms, the authorship and his work, the sources of the epic, and a list of the details about twenty-seven incidents in the biography of Anantsanätha
SAMBODHI
The original Prakrit work is divided into four Prastavas, treating the events of his three previous lives, his birth, his marriage along with consecration as a king and his initiation, and his attainment of supreme wisdom and his sermons The work consists of 9610 Gāthās, including the final sıx Sanskrit verses of author's Prasasti
Published as the work is for the first time, it should invite the attention of scholars of Prakrit languages, and it should also attract the research students aspiring to find a suitable topic, to take it up for a very detailed linguistic, literary and cultural study of the work.
The author of his work was Acārya Nemicandra-süni of the Vada-gaccha, and a disciple of the famous Acarya Amradeva-sün, the author of the Akhyänakamanikosa-vrtti From the Prasasti at the end of the work we come to know that he composed this work in the year V Sam 1497, which means he lived in the late half of the 15th and the first half of the 16th century of the Vikrama Era Pt Paganya has rendered great service to Indology by bringing to light this rare Praknt work, and for it he deserves our congratuations NMK.
ACARAMGA PRATHAMNA ŚRUTA-SKANDHA PRATHAMA ADHYAYANA, edited by KR Chandra, Praknt Jain Vidya Vikas Fund, Ahmedabad, 1997, pp XXVIII + 327, Rs 150/
The First Adhyayana of the First Śruta-skandha of the Acarāmga, is considered to be the earliest and oldest composition of the Jaina Ardhamägadhi Agamas It has been re-edited linguistically only The task undertaken by its editor Dr KR Chandra is a Herculean one as per the opinions of various scholars and particularly of the late Agama-prabhakara Muni Shri Punyavijayajı and Pt Bechardas Doshi It took the editor ten years of painstaking labor to prepare this edition as it was first of all very necessary to sort out the archaic wordforms of the original Ardhamägadhi from the published authentic editions of the important Agamic Ardhamāgadhi texts and from the all available manuscripts It entailed the preparation of thousands of cards for recording the vanant readings, to be arranged alphabetically in order to ascertain the onginal
