पृष्ठम्:विक्रमाङ्कदेवचरितम् - बिल्हण.pdf/६

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INTRODUCTION.
appear' so much more interesting to him, because their deeds are
more marvellous and they are surrounded by the halo of sanctity
that encircles the happier Yugas in which they are supposed
to have lived. It is, therefore, no wonder that countless copies
of S'ribarsha's adventures of King Nala should exist all over
India, while, hitherto not one MS. of the author's Life of
the 'New Sahasânka' or of his History of the Râjâs of Ganda
has been discovered. The reason, why the Sanskritist longs
in vain for works that could serve as foundations for his
historical researches, lies not, therein, that the rulers of India
found no contemporaries willing to chronicle their deeds,
but therein that nobody cared to preserve historical works
from destruction or to make them easily accessible by copy-
ing and recopying the original MSS. There is, however, a
hope that at least some more poems like the S'riharshacharita
and the Vikramánkadevacharita may still be found in a few
copies in unexplored libraries especially in the Jaina Bhandars.
The Jesalmir Bhandar, which I explored last year, is the
first ancient library of the Jaina community, that has been
thoroughly searched by a European Sanskritist. It furnished two
historical works viz. besides the Vikramánkadevacharita, a poem
on the death of a Gauda king, who was conquered by a ruler
of the name of Yas'orarman, and its ancient catalogue bears
witness that ninety years ago two MSS. existed one of which
contained S'riharsha's Navasáhasánkacharita, while the other
was a copy of a work entitled Hammiramardana, or the De-
struction of Hammira. I am firmly pursuaded that, whosoever
has the good fortune of opening the libraries at Pâthan in
Northern, Gujarât, at Merta in Marwar and at other ancient
seats of Jainism, will gain much more important results
than I have obtained at Jesalmir, where time and careless-
ness lave destroyed a good many valuable MSS. The
Jainas have collected for many centuries not only large