Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1

Author(s): Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 183

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VAISHALI INSTITUTE RESEARCH BULLETIN NÓ, I
“There is no dearth of Jaina Journals, particularly in vernacular, in this country, but there is hardly any that claim the modern outlook, still less the modern technique of journalism. This Journal intends to fill up this long-felt gap. Its various sections devoted to Jaina art, literature, philosophy, religion, bookreviews and digests, current notes, etc, are carefully prepared under expert supervision so that everyone, no matter whether he be the follower of the Jaina path or not, may benefit from its reading. The outlook is strictly rational."
The Journal is steadily, though slowly, moving towards its avowed objectives which it is bound to achieve.
The Jaina Agamas
5. A number of schemes of publication of the Jaina Agamas are afoot. Shri Mahavir Jaina Vidyalaya of Bombay deserves our congra. tulations for their Ten Year Plan to publish the Jaina Agama texts in 17 volumes with the active assistance of Muni Shri Punyavijayaji.
The Jaina Swetambar Terapanthi Mahasabha of Calcutta sponsored, as early as 1956, a scheme to publish the entire Jaina Agama, critically edited, annotated and provided with scholarly introductions. A Council of Scholars, all of whom are Jaina monks, headed by Acharya-Shri Tulsi as the Vachana-Pramukha and Muni Shri Nathmalji as the editor-in-chief, have started, in all earnestness, the work of collating the texts contained in the manuscripts that are available to them from different parts of the country and made successfull progress. Five such texts, critically edited, have already been published by the Mahasabha under the Managing Editorship of Shri Shreechand Rampuria, a reputed author and prolific writer of books and journals. These texts are :
1. Dasavea liyam. 2. Uttarajjhayanāņi. 3. Ayāro taha Āyāra-cūtā 4. Nistihaj jhayaņam,
5. Ovavaiyam, In editing these texts, the editors have been cautious about all the possible sources of manuscript corruption, which are enumerated as six by the Agamic Scholiast Abhayadeva Suri, in his Țhananga commentary. viz. (1) absence of a genuine tradition, (2) lack of right reasoning, (3) ignorance of one's own as well as other's śāstras, (4) loss of memory, (5) conflicting versions of texts, and (6) corrupt manuscripts.