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1. INTRODUCTION
Hemacandra's Rayaṇāvalī (also called Desisaddasaṁgaho and Deśināmamālā), written sometime in 1045-1050 AD., was the latest and probably the largest of ancient Indian lexicons of a certain class of Prakrit words, which have been known as desya, desi or deśaja after the traditional terminology. The Desināmamālā (further abbreviated as DN.) is not a quite self-subsisting, independent work. It is one integral part or unit within a larger grammatical and lexical network that was based on a traditionally developed theory of words.
In ancient India language was subjected to analysis and description mostly as a medium of literature and cultivated discourse, confined to a privileged class. Grammatical tradition since its earliest stages was ever deeply concerned about guarding the 'purity' of the language, about the standard usage of the cultured -the sistas. Since more than eleven hundred years before Hemacandra, Prakrits too along with Sanskrit had been in use as literary media. It was the constant task of the long line of grammarians reaching up to and beyond Hemacandra to authenticate the stock of words in literary usage, as it was naturally and inevitably subject to unceasing renewal.
Literary Prakrits were highly conventionalized and stylized languages, more or less bookish and receiving
ceaseless reinforcement from Sanskrit. As one of the aims of Sanskrit grammars was to aid writers and critics, they came to devote sections to rules deriving Prakrit phonology and grammar from Sanskrit. Accordingly the word-stock of literary Prakrit received treatment under a threefold classification (i) Roots and word-stems which were practically identical with their Sanskrit originals, because their sounds and meaning did not undergo any apparent or noteworthy phonological and semantic modification (tatsama-s). (ii)
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