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PREFACE
अवाच्यो वाचकैर्धर्मः कृपया येन देशितः । नमोऽचिन्त्यप्रभवाय बुद्धायासङ्गबुद्धये ॥1
The great Indian Indologist, the late M. M. Pt. Vidhushekhara Bhattacharya had some sixteen years back expressed the hope that with the utilisation of the Śrăvakabhūmi Manuscript the entire Yogācārabhūmiśāstra would come to the light of the day. His cherished hopes are now on the way of fulfilment with the publication of this volume of the text of the Srāvakabhūmi. Though only the first five bhūmis of the Yogācārabhūmiśāstra and the Bodhisattvabhūmi have so far appeared and now the Srävakabhūmi is coming to light, we may hope that the entire Yogācārabhumi will be published soon?.
All this owes debt to the explorations of the great linguist, scholar and discoverer, the late Mahāpaņạita Rāhula Sāṁkstyāyana, who discovered the manuscripts of this and several other Buddhist philosophical texts, long supposed to be lost, from the hidden secret treasures of the Tibetan Monasteries. This is one of the biggest achievements of Indian scholarship in the
1. Mahāyānavimśikā of Nāgārjuna, VS. 1. 2. We learn that Prof. Anantalal Thakur is editing the remaining
portions of the text of the Yogācārabhūmiśāstra.
