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INTRODUCTION
xxxi
I have not come by any independent evidence to verify this hearsay report. N died at Bombay in 18951 at the age of seventy and was buried in a local churchyard the next evening.
IV
Here we are concerned only with the history and
psychology of N's career and works Strange Similarity and not with the merits or demerits in Earlier and Later
Les of his conversion. Strangely enough. Work,
his treatment and mode of approach, despite the radical innovation in his hasic grounds, are sometimes identical in his pre-conversion and post-conversion works. Thus the Introductory Verses I. 4-8 and Prefatory Verse
स्वपरमतसुवित्तिर्भावबोधे च शक्ति
गुणयुगलविशिष्टा द्रष्टुमर्हन्ति शिष्टाः । कृतनतिरथ याचे यो न मे भाववेत्ता
तमिति ह निजदोषो मत्कृतौ नार्पणीयः ।।
prefixed to the Śsistratattvavinirnaya, wherein he requests the Christian readers to give a patient audience to his seemingly harsh words and to interpret them only in the sense meant by him and not in any other sense, are similar in spirit to his Preface ( Abbāsa) to the Şaddarśanadar para wherein he addresses similar requests to the Hindu readers. The Rāmāyaṇa verse सुलभाः पुरुषा ete. has been employed in both the works
1. Strangely enough, the exact date and month of N's death are not recorded in the Hindi biography !
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
