On April 4th, 1972 Professor Ludwing Alsdorf was sent a typewritten copy of an English version of his Paris lectures delivered in 1965 under the title "Les Etudes Jaina. Etat present et taches futures," made by Mr. Bal Patil, with the request for consideration and revision. This was done on the advice of Professor A.N. Upadhye, the Chief Editor of the Nirvana Mahotsava Publications, whose assistant Mr. Patil then was. For unknown reasons, Alsdorf left the matter. A year later he died and part of his literary legacy remained in the basement of his former institute in Hamburg and part elsewhere until 2004, when his family were able to gather it together. At this point, Mr. Patil’s manuscript came into the hands of the present writer, who, in order to find out whether the translation had meanwhile been published, write to Dr. Peter Flugel in London, a friend of Mr. Patil (who had been searching for his translation in vain and himself had no copy). Dr. Flugel then forwarded me Patil’s address. In arrangement with the latter, a thorough revision thereof was undertaken as these lectures are as relevant as ever and ought to be read by everyone who wants to work in the field of Prakrit. This may therefore be enough legitimation for an English version. Greater divergencies between the German original, which is with the editor, and the French version are mentioned in the notes.
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