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INTRODUCTIUN
53
majority of Prākrit words excepting a few which come under the head of desī or desya are traceable to Sanskrit. All Prākrit grammarians are conscious of it. The great grammarian Hc. expressly mentions the three categories of Prākrit words, i. e., Tadbhava, Tatsama and Desya, and states that he wants to treat of Tadbhava only in his chapter under Prākrit since he bas already dealt with Tatsama in the previous chapters and of desya he would not treat in the present chapter. He perhaps intended thereby that desya words form a sort of exception and do not come under the usual rules of Prākrit and hence they would be dealt with in a separate treatise which he has actually done in his Desīnāmamālā. Knowing full well that desya did not comprise the usual Prākrit forms of words, Hc. classified it under the Prākrit, and despite this fact he derived Prākrit from Sanskrit, the latter being considered prakrti or origin of the former. Similar was the case with Mk. He is fully conscious that the desya words do not come under the usual rules and that they vary from region to region being used side by side by great poets (cf. laksanairasiddham tattaddesaprasiddham mahākaviprayuktam......). Also see his quotation from Bhojadeva :
देशे देशे नरेन्द्राणां जनानां च स्वके स्वके ।
भगया प्रवर्तते यस्मात्तस्माद्देश्यं निगद्यते ॥ "Deśya is so called because of being used with peculiar difference of the meaning form locality to locality of kings as well as of the common mass”. Thus Mk was aware of the fact that Deśya did not comprise the usual forms of Prakrit words and strictly speaking, they did not come under the Prākrit voca
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