(...)"TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
THE Jains are now well known to the learned in Europe as the only representatives in Hindustan of the adherents to the tenets of Buddhism, a religious community once so numerous in India Proper, and still embracing so many of the inhabitants of the neighbouring countries of Ceylon, Tibet, Burma, China, and its adjacent territories. Without the least disparagement to the learned dissertations that have been published on the Jains, I trust that the following translations, the one, that of their most sacred religious work, and the other, that of their most popular philosophical essay, will not be unacceptable to those who take an interest in the history of the religious opinions and philosophy of India.
Of the eight days in the middle of the rains which are devoted to the reading of those works esteemed peculiarly sacred, no less than five (...)"
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