Preface to the Eleventh Edition. A word of explanation is necessary for the numerous changes introduced in this edition. The past editions have been more or less reprints of the original edition. No attempt wasiade to remove the various inconsistencies between text and commentary that were in the first edition and thus these have persisted throughout so far. It was useless to try to reconcile the irreconcileable inconsistencies and I thought of beginning at the very beginning. Efforts to orts to get Mss. proved in vain. I had therefore to be content with merely pointing out in the foot-notes the inconsistencies and adopting in the text the plausible readings. This process continued till I reached the end of the first part, when happily or unhappily, I came by two Mss. one of which at least was such as gave no scope to doubt its authority. But the work so far edited was already out of the press. Nevertheless I decided to avail myself of the Mss. for the purpose of the second part. It was indeed a very pleasant surprise that the inconsistencies that were in this part too, were not found in the Mss. and it was here that I realised why it is not advisa- ble to rely merely on the printed edition for the purpose of bringing out a fresh edition and how Mss. help us to produce a text which bears the stamp of authority. But as said above nothing could be done so far as the first part was concerned and I leave it to the future edition to bring it in a line with the second. Mention should be made here of the Appendix which has been added giving extracts from the Mahabharata re- levent to the episode as presented by Magha. My sincere thanks are due to Mr. K. V. Soman who bore the brunt of the task in comparing the Mss. with the previous edition. N. R. Acharya.
