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VIII
FOREWORD
prepared by Babā for the determination of variants, his thousands of index cards and slips, and the rest. I then thought to myself that there are in our country hundreds of thousands of Sanskritists and pandits, thousands of professors teaching Sanskrit literature in colleges, whose means of livelihood are the study, teaching, and the spread of the Sanskrit language. Yet, how many among these learned people are there to be seen serving their own subject with devotion ? I don't write all this with a view of praising my dear friend Bābā but in order that the pandits and professors of Sanskrit in this country might keep the example of a non-sanskritist* like Prof. Kosambi before their eyes and might then develop some little desire to carry out their own duty.
As a result of Prof. Kosambi's researches on this book, it has been proved that these writings of Bhartrhari have been regarded since the earliest times with love and respect by Jain tradition. Hundreds of beautifully written manuscript copies still exist in Jain Bhāndārs. The oldest of the old manuscripts that Prof. Kosambi could procure is also copied by a Jain scholar, being shown in our illustration. This copy is by the hand of the famous Pratisthāsomagani whose Soma-Saubhāgya Kāvya and other works are still extant. Similarly, of all Sanskrit commentaries written on this work, the oldest known is again by a Jain scholar. This commentary was prepared by the learned Dhanasāra Gaụi, a yati of the Upakesagaccha. Besides this, there are available many brief Sanskrit glosses and interpretations in mixed Rajasthāni-Gujarāti by other Jain scholars. Imitations of this work are known among Jain books, as for example the Somaśataka, Padmānandasataka, S'țiigăra. vairāgya-dataka, Dhanadatrisats, and so on.
Certainly, for hundreds of years, these epigrammatic verses of Bhartrhari have guided, and will continue to guide, every educated Indian in the path of peace, goodwill, and propriety. This edition by Prof. Kosambi will prove to scholars how the poet's work has penetrated into every corner of India.
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KĀRTIKĪ PŪRNIMĀ Vikram Samvat 2005,
Jina Vijaya Mani
In writing these words I remember the name of the grect German scholar Grassmann who is known principally as a great mathematician but who, in his old age, made a deep study of the Sanskrit language and as a result made the first German translation of a fundamental Sanskrit book like the Rgveda.
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