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Tessitori's Pioneering Work on the Uvaeśamālā ... : 95
years which separates Tessitori's work on the Uvaesamālā from us, new documents have come up, they have not affected the validity of Tessitori's main conclusions because his method was scientific in the true sense of the word. No wonder that this work, which was originally presented as "tesi di perfezionamento” availed him maximum praise and was so readily published. Let us not forget that he achieved it when he was between 23 and 25 years old.
No wonder also that he could establish so close personal contacts with the foremost Jaina monks of the time, and especially Vijayadharmasūri and his group, whose daily life he had the honour of sharing: the magnificent - and quite moving - photographic exhibition we saw in Moggio Udinese is a proof of it. He did not go to India with the idea of doing fieldwork without knowing the literature and the language, as some anthropologists of our time do. His vast and first-hand knowledge of the Jaina tradition and the sincereness of his personality were undoubtedly what opened for him the doors of the Jaina community who, so-to-say, adopted him. References :
1. Giornale deța Societa Italiana, 25, 1912, p. 167-297 2. Ibid. P. 55-56 3. See also the lecture written in English, Jodhpur 1914, mentioned
in the Proceedings of the Udine Conference of 1987 p. 48; Italian
title : "Dharmadāsa era contemporaneo di Mahāvīra?" 4. See GSAI p. 295-297 5. See GSAI p. 188; Also : Indian Edition published in 1915, Jaina
Dharma Prasāraka Sabhā, Bhavnagar (according to Velankar
Jinaratnakośa p. 48). 6. GSAI p. 172 7. Vottum je, 35; kāūņ je, 383. Similarly, two forms with je in the
Candāvejjhaya (c. Caillat. Paris, 1971 56) 8. GSAI p. 177 9. To be identified : vs. 139 pathareņāhao kivo; 208 samjha-rāga
jala-bubbuovame; 341 viņao sāsaņe mūlam (neither found in
Daśavaikāla nor in Uttarādhyayana). 10. See also C. Della Casa, Proceings of the Udaine Conference of
1987 : p. 56 n. 9.
