All those who have occasion to study the ancient scriptures of the Jains will welcome this Dictionary. Especially will this be true of laymen who are not deeply learned in the ancient language of the Jain church, and also of those who are starting the study of Ardha-Magadhi, whether for the purposes of philology, of philosophy, or for the general history of Indian thought and religion. Such have had to depend on Commentaries and detached Glossaries dealing each with one particular text. A further justification for the enterprise lies in the hope that it may furnish useful material for a more comprehensive Prakrit Dictionary embracing all the known dialects of the Middle stage of the Indian language, which has come down in various forms from Vedic ages to the Indi-Aryan languages of to-day. The spelling of MSS. varies and in order that a student of editor may be able to see what forms are found in other passages and are recognized as correct he needs a Directory  with references to the texts. That is what this book proposes to supply for Ardha-Magadhi. Further study may lead to the correction of many forms, but it is to facilitate such study that this work has been undertaken.