Tattvarthadhigamsutram Part 2

Author(s): Umaswati, Umaswami, Hiralal R Kapadia
Publisher: Jivanchandra Sakarchandra

Page 19

PREFACE
It is a matter of great solace to me to mention that I have fortunately succeeded in fulfilling my promise of editing this important and interesting work, though the progress in the direction of completing this arduous task was seriously hampered by the untimely death of my youngest brother Khushmanlal. He appeared for the B. Sc. examination with Chemistry from the Elphinstone College, the Almameter of mine also, in 1921 A. D. and secured the first class. Soon after, he joined the St. Xavier's College as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry, the College wherein, I, too, have worked as Assistant Professor of Mathematics, though, for a term. He continued to discharge his duties till the cruel hand of Death snatched him away from the midst of his relations, friends and acquaintances, on the 28th August 1926, after he had suffered from a protracted illness for about two years. This is not the place where I should even briefly record his career; so, without dilating upon my personal worries and shocks, I had to put up with, owing to the premature deaths of three members of my family who passed away though young, within a period of 15 months, I shall now add a few words in connection with the completion of the press-copy, in addition to what I have said in the preface of the first part of this voluminous work.
It was indeed very difficult for me to prepare the press-copy of this work, since, the manuscripts herein designated as Ka and Kha were unreliable. I would have been obliged to give up this attempt, after the sixth chapter and a part of the seventh were copied out, had I not succeeded in procuring the Ms. from the Jainānanda Pustakālaya of Surat which is here named as Ga. This, too, did not facilitate my work very much; for, it only partially helped me in clearing some doubts. In course of time, I was supplied by the publisher with a hand-written copy of this work prepared by a scribe, who, ignorant as he must be of the Sanskrit language had even failed to decipher the charactres. Anyhow, this was useful to me in tackling some knotty points, a fact that led me to suggest to the publisher that he should kindly supply me with the original Ms., which I am sorry to mention, proved a fruitless attempt for him.
Under these circumstances, on the one hand, I was inclined to proceed rather slowly with a view that I may get better materials to work with, while on the other, my attention was being drawn to the continuous demand for the second part, from the various sources.
1 A brief sketch is outlined in the St. Xavier's College Magazine ( September 1926 ).