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112 Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin No. 4
Įl*
Hamburg, dep March 6th, 1975. Dear Dr, Poddar,
"Better late than never." I am answering your letter of Oct, 18th of last year. That letter arrived in Hamburg when I had just left for India where I spent five weeks until the end of November. I took part in Delhi in a seminar arranged by Acharya Tulsiji at the Apuvrat Bhavan. Unfotunately we did not meet then, if I remember correctly. At any rate, your letter somehow went into oblivion, due also to very heavy arrears I had to deal with after my return. But alam vis tarena.
I have read with interest the synopsis of the (unnamed) research scholar of your institute. His approach to the Vasudevabiņdi is almost totally different from my own : I am principally interested in the relation of this Jaina version of the Brbatkathā to the other versions and the possi. bilities it offers for a reconstruction of Guņādbya's lost work. As to the paper read by me in Rome in 1935 "Eine neue version der verlorenen Brhatkathā des Gunādbya", it has never been translated into English, and I have no off print of the German original left. There is, however, now a reprint of it in a collection of articles of inine called “Kleine Schriften". I do hope that it will be available in some library in India. That volume also contains my article, The Vasudevabindi a Specimen of Archaic Jaina-Maharastri" originally published in the bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies in London. As your unpamed research scholar is also dealing wiih linguistic problems, it might be helpful to him. And lastly, it might be of interest to him that Prof. Dr. J. C. Jain, a former lecturer of Hindi at the University of Kiel (Germary), now 28, Shivaji Park, Bombay 28, has nearly completed a book on the Vasudevahindi, partly on the basis of materials I had supplied to him.
I am afraid this is all I cın give you of advice and guidance on the subject which is rather remote from my present researches.
With best wishes for you and your unnamed student and kind regards.
Yours sincerely,
Sd/-L. Alsdorf. * This letter was written by Late D. L. Alsdorf in response to a
query regarding a research project op Vasudevahindi. The project is now complete and the researcher has been awarded Ph. D. degree of Bihar University--Editor,
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