Desi Nammala

SR No.: 009988
Original Sutra Author: Hemchandracharya
Author: Muralydhar Banerjee
Publisher: University of Calcutta
Publication Year: 1931
Total Pages: 396
Language: Hindi
Classification: Dictionary
File Size: 67 MB

Page 28

INTRODUCTION
xxvii
marians. 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 languages. The great majority are however words derived from dialects of the Primary Prakrits 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 Indian grammarians, in whose philosophy the existence of such ancient dialects was not dreamed of. These Desya words were local dialectic forms, and as might be expected, are found most commonly in literary works hailing from countries like. Gujarat, far away from the natural home of Classical Sanskrit the 'Madhyadesa'. For our purpose they may be considered as identical with Tadbhavas." 1
Sir George Grierson thus regards the Prakrits preserved in literature as not derived from Sanskrit, Classical or Vedic, but from the Primary Prakrits by which he means the spoken Aryan dialects of the Vedic age, from one of which Vedic and Classical Sanskrit were developed by literary culture. The Desi words are derived from the spoken dialects of other provinces lying round 'Madhyadeśa' the home of Vedic and Classical Sanskrit in which these provincial words did not find any place. A majority of these words may be called Tadbhavas' if Tat' is here taken to mean the Primary Prakrits instead of Sanskrit, though a few of these may have been borrowed from Munda or Dravidian.
That the orthodox view of the origin of Prakrit from Sanskrit is untenable and both Sanskrit and the Prakrits are
4
Grierson, "The Linguistic Survery of India,' Vol. I, pp. 127-28. Also Languages of India in the Census Report of India, 1901, pp. 159-60.