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INTRODUCTION
43
According to him classical Sanskrit including Vedic,. of which it is a lineal descendant, is to be derived from one of the Primary Prākrit dialects' of the Vedic age " but fixed in its existing form by the labours of grammarians, which may be said to have culminated in the work of Pāṇini about the year 360 B. c.". These Primary Prākrits having no extant literature of their own are now lost. Out of these sprung the literary Prākrits, the earliest specimens of which Pali, Jaina Ardhamāgadhī, the edicts of Asoka, and middle stage of which is represented by the Prākrit dialects of the dramas and Jaina Mahārāștri and the last stage of which is to be found in the literary Apabhramsas. All these he calls the secondary Prākrits. Then by an extension of the term, the modern Aryan vernaculars that arose about the 10th century A. D. from the local Apabhramśas are called by him the “Tertiary Prākrits".
Speaking of the Des’ys words, GRIERSON writes:
Another class of words is also to be mentioned, the so-called "Deśya" or local words of the Indian Grammarians. It included all words which the grammarians were unable to refer to Sanskrit, simply through the ignorance of the writers who catalogued them. Modern scholars can refer most of these to Sanskrit like any other Tadbhavas. A few others are words borrowed from Munda or Dravidian language. The great majo rity are, however, words derived from dialects of the Primary Prākrits which were not that from which classical Sanskrit has descended. They are the true Tadbhavas although not in the sense given to that word by
6 LSI, Vol. I, p. 127-128
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