वेदान्तसार: Vedanta Sara

The first edition, published seventeenyears ago, has been out of print for some time; but as the demand for it continues we decided to re-issue it.

The text was so carefully prepared on the former occasion that I have seen no reason to alter it except in one or two places, but the Notes have undergone through revision. The "Maxims" so often referred to are my First, Second and Third Handful of Popular Maxims current in Sanskrit Literature ( published by the Nirnaya-sagar Press) each of which is now in a second edition. The adoption, on this occasion, of somewhat smaller type has reduced the size of the book by 30 pages; but the changed pagination which this necessarily involved has given me a great deal of extra work. However, the list of quotations has been adapted to the present edition, but I was complied to abandon the index to the words. Had I been a guru I could have entrusted to sisya the troublesome task of rewriting it; but, being only a solitary worker, no such aid was available. I am thankful to have lived long enough to bring the work up to date myself, and no further revision should be needed for many a day, if ever.

This is, so far as I know, the first attempt to publish a critical edition of sadananda's work in conjunction with its two Commentaries. Dr. Ballantyne brought out an edition of the text; accompanied by an excellent English Tanslation in 1850; but that has long been out of print. A greatly inproved text, with German translation, formed part of Dr. Boehtlingk's Chrestomathis published in 1877. But the only edition of Nrisimhasarasvati's commentary was printed in Calcutta in 1828, and in Benares )(in the Pandit) in 1873. In the Latter instance it formed a mere appendage to the English translation, was put together with very little regard to typography, and looks as if it had been prepared from a single manuscript of pronounced inaccuracy !

The present edition is the outcome of a careful collation of fifteen manuscripts, a process which brought to light numerous misreading which had been adopted more or less fully by previous editors. These have been removed; but, possibly, whilst thus avoiding Scylla I may have fallen into feature of this volume is that here, for the first time, the quotations are plainly marked and their sources indicated. The fact that the three works contain in the aggregate 579 citations from other authors, and that all but 25 of them have been traced and verified, will show the importance of this addition. But only quotation-hunters will rightly appreciate the immense labour and research which it implies! I would here acknowledge my indebtedness to Prof. Buhler for two references, and to Prof. Cowell, Prof. Venis, and Mr. Kasinath B. pathak, for one each. A special acknowledgement is made in each case in foot-note or in the Notes a the end. I have appended an Index to the quotations (exclusive of those from Upanisads and the Gita which can always be obtained from my Concordance), and a second one to all the technical and useful terms. The latter list includes twelve nyayas, or maxims, all of which are explained in the Notes. It is much to be wished that editors of Sutras, of philosophical poems, and of metrical law books, would give usefull Indices thereto: for in these degenerate times of uncultivated memories such aids would be invaluable. Yet , to this day, we have no printed index to the Nyaya or Vaisesika Sutras and it was only in 1889 and 1891 that Dr. Garbe and Mr. M. C. Apte gave us those to the Sankhya and lation that Mr. Apte is adding an Index to the Anandas rama edition of Suresvara's bulky work the Brihadaranyakavartika. This will increase its value immensely.