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FOREWORD [1]
A complete history of Indian philosophy during the early mediaeval age remains yet to be written. It represents probably the most prolific period in the intellectual life of India when scholastic metaphysics and logic, like other branches of Indian culture, had their origin and development. It covers nearly a thousand years before the advent of Islamic invaders Like Nyaya Vaisheshika, Mimansa, Vedanta, Vyakarana and Agarnik schools on the orthodox side, the Buddhist and Jaina schools also produced some of their best philosophic writers during this period. Thanks to the untiring labours and admirable perseverance of modern scholars some of the best works of these schools, supposed to have been irrevocably lost, are being gradually recoverd and brought to light. We are sincerely grateful to these pains taking workers for what they have been doing in this field.
I congratulate Dr. Mahendra Kumar Jain, M. A., Nyayacharya, Ph. D. of the College of Oriental Learning, Banaras Hindu University on his remarkable achievement in the sphere of early Jain philosophical speculations. Having recovered Siddhi Vinishchaya, the lost work of the veteran Jain logician, Akalanka and having edited it and its commentary by Ananta-virya he has rendered an invaluable service to the cause not only of the Jain philosophy but of the entire mediaeval philosophy of India. The text of Akalanka's work had to be reconstructed by him from the single manuscript of a single commentary, with occasional help derived from other sources. The labours involved in this text have naturally been immense and it is a pleasure to find that we are at last presented with the fruits of his long continued labour in the form of an excellent critical edition of the text and commentary accompanied by a learned introduction (116 pages in English and 164 pages in Hindi) and by notes in Sanskrit (named Aloka ) by the editor himself. It is true that in a work of this kind it is not possible to ensure absolute freedom from inaccuracies but there is no doubt that a tolerably correct and readable text of Akalanka's magnum opus is now available to us for closure study and further investigation.
2 A, Sigra Varanasi
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