The Doctrine of the Jainas, Described after the Old Sources c3.2

c3.2

In harmony with the character of the “Grundriss” certain limits had to be respected. Often outlines and references had to suffice, though, especially in the first chapters, the description thus came near to a sketch. The author consciously neglected the treatment of other religious and philosophical systems and historical facts of Old as well as of Mediaeval and New India in order not only to avoid an excessive extent of the book, but also, eventually, to give the old sources, i. e. the Śvetāmbara Canon, their due, but not neglecting Digambara writers. It need not be said that it was impossible to render all details themselves or even to register all references to the same. Hence the reader must be warned against taking this book for a bibliography or an encyclopedia. The names of the Jain authors and Jain works can but serve to indicate the untiring zeal of scholars and the grand liberality of donators in favour of their noble religion. That the bibliographical survey of the first edition has been altogether dropped seems to be excusable, since the conditions of the present epoch did not allow of bringing forward a survey of all that in the mean time had been printed and published on the field of Jainism in India.