The translation of the Akaranga Sutra is based on my edition of the text in the Pali Text Society , and the commentaries printed in the Calcutta edition of the Akaranga Sutra. They are

1. Tika of Silanka, also called Tattvaditya, said to have been finished in the Saka year 798 or 876 A.D., with the help of Vahari Sadhu.

2. Dipika of Ginahamsa Suri, a teacher of the Brihat Kharatara Gakkha. The Dipika is almost verbally copied from the Tika, which it pretends to reduce to a smaller compass. But the reduction consists almost entirely in the omission of Silanka's comments on the Niryukti verses, which form his introduction to every lecture and lesson.

3. Parsvakandra's Balavabodha or Gugerati Gloss. In some parts of the second book, which are not explained in the older commentaries, this gloss was the only help I had. It generally closely follows the explanation of the older commentaries, more especially that of the Dipika.

About the Kalpa Sutra I have spoken at some length in

the introduction to my edition of that work , to which I refer the reader for further particulars. Since that time Professor Weber has taken up the subject in his treatise on the Sacred Books of the Gainas and corrected some mistakes of mine. He ascertained that the whole Kalpa Sutra is incorporated as the eighth lecture in the Dasasrutaskandha, the fourth Kheda Sutra. Professor Weber concurs in my opinion that the 'Rules for Yatis' may be the work of Bhadrabahu , and that the List of Sthaviras' probably has been added by Devarddhi, the editor of the Siddhanta. I do not think, however, that Devarddhi was the author of the Life of Mahavira also, as Professor Weber suggests. For if it were the work of so well known a man, tradition would certainly not have allowed such a fact to become forgotten. It was a different thing with the List of Sthaviras, which consists of four or five distinct treatises only put together and added to the Lives of the Ginas by the editor of the work. We cannot argue from the style of the Lives of the Ginas that that part must be younger than the Rules for Yatis; for the same difference of style occasioned by the diversity of the matter exists between the third Kula of the Akaranga Sutra and the two preceding ones. Nor can the meagreness of the contents be adduced as an argument against the antiquity of the Lives of the Ginas, since they were probably not intended for biographical treatises, but served a liturgical purpose; for when the images of the Tirthakaras are worshipped in the temples they are addressed with hymns, one of which sums up the Kalyanakas or auspicious moments . It is