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FOREWORD
but it is under suspicion of being too methodical in its computations. The Hindus, who recognize the Tirthamkara as one of the incarnations of Vişnu, hold that he appeared shortly after the formation of the world, and that no less than twenty-eight yugas (cycles) have elapsed since then. All that can be said definitely about His age, then, is that He flourished very very far back in the hoariest of hoary antiquity; and that He was prior to all systematized forms of religion !
C. R. JAIN.
MARIE VILLA, Simla, 19th May, 1929.
