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Introduction
This volume presents the papers of the two Seminars on 'Haribhadrasūri and His Works' organized by the Bhogilal Leherchand Institute of Indology, Delhi, in 1986 (on 27-28 September) and 1987 (on 25–27 September), respectively. Although Mahā-mahopādhyaya Vinaya Sāgaraji and Dr. V. Venkatachalam working with the institute, as the then Director had gone through them, they were not finalized unto the year 1999, and the material was still lying unpublished. I was, therefore requested by the current Director, Dr. Vimal Prakash Jain to go through them, make my recommendations and finalize the papers to be published.
All the scholars seem to have taken for granted that the Haribhadrasūri around whom this Seminars revolved is the one well known as the disciple of Jinadattasūri of the Vidyādhara Gaccha, and who mentions himself as 'Yākini-sūnu' and whose works are said to be Virahānka' due the occurrence of the word "viraha' in the last verse of his composition. It is this famous Jain Acharya whose contribution is intended to be discussed by the organizers of these two Seminars. He flourished during the eighth century, according to the opinion of modern scholars, though the Jain tradition would place him a couple of centuries earlier, i.e. during the sixth century AD. Prof. H. R. Kapadia has noted about six other Jain Acharyas, with the nomenclature 'Haribhadra' who lived during the two hundred and fifty years, between the twelfth and the fourteenth century AD. Our Haribhadra preceded them all. The tradition preserves more or less mythical details
