Book Title: Desi Nammala
Author(s): Hemchandracharya, Muralydhar Banerjee
Publisher: University of Calcutta

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Page 17
________________ xvi they employ slightly different phraseology to express these classes the following names are generally accepted, viz., (1) Tatsama, (2) Tadbhava, (3) Desi. DESINĀMAMĀLĀ This classification is evidently based on the orthodox view of the origin of Prakrit from Sanskrit. Accordingly the word Tat' in the first two classes means Sanskrit and these two classes respectively denote (1) Prakrit words borrowed from Sanskrit without any change of form, and (2) Prakrit words borrowed from Sanskrit with change of form. The third class denotes those words which cannot be derived from Sanskrit and are supposed to belong to different provinces. It may be translated as 'provincial.' Hemacandra defines Desi to be "such words as are not derived by the rules of his grammar and even when derived are not current in Sanskrit dictionaries nor can be derived by any 'gauni lakṣaṇā,' i. e., the metaphorical use of words."" Such words are further defined as "not including all provincial dialectical words but only such Prakrit words as are current through ages without beginning." Let us now take up the views of the modern Orientalists on the origin of Prakrit and Desi words. The Rev. R. Caldwell, in his Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian languages (Longmans, London, 1856) tries to explain the origin of the Northern Indian Vernaculars by the influence of the Scythian and the Dravidian languages over Sanskrit when the Aryan settlers first mixed with the Non-Aryans in Northern India. "According 1 The equivalent terms for the three classes are: (1) Tatsama, Samskṛtasama, Tattulya, Samanasabda; (2) Tadbhava, Samskṛtabhava, Samskṛtayoni, Tajja, Vibhrasta; (3) Desi, Desiprasiddha, Desimata; for full reference see Grammatik der Prakrit-Sprachen, Strassburg (1900), §8, 3 3 Desināmāmālā, present Ed., p. 1, 3, Op. cit., p. 1, 4,

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