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INTRODUCTION
XXY me the most probable, to judge from the sentiment of modern Pandits on the subject. The results of modern research tend towards diminishing the number of these desya words, by discovering, through means unknown to native grammarians, their real origin and tracing them back to Prakrit and Sanskrit. In so far, they make in support of the opinion of those grammarians. But the question whether they are or are not Aryan, is by no means decided thereby. A word may be: Prakritic or Sanskritic and yet may not be Aryan. Whatever non-Aryan elements there may be in the IndoAryan languages, they must have been incorporated in the earliest times, i.e., at the period when Paisaci and the ancient Apabhramsa were spoken by the subject aborigines and their Aryan conquerors respectively and when old Sanskrit was the Aryan high language; a period which was anterior to that of what is now commonly called (classical) Sanskrit..."
Sir R. G. Bhandarkar defines Deśajas “as such as cannot be derived from Sanskrit and must be referred to another source."Later he definitely speaks of them as coming from the languages of the aborigines :-“Still a Desi element in
1 According to Hoernle the Aryan vernaculars in the mouth of the aborigines who fell under the domination of the Aryans, were distorted into Paisaci. And the speech of the Aryans resulting from the assimilation of the Dravidian elements caused by the amalgamation of the aborigines with the Aryans, was the Apabhramśa dialect. Thus Paisaci and Apabhramsa are the vernaculars of the Aryans as spoken by the aborigines and by themselves respectively. This view of the origin of these two
rakrit dialects from the contact of the Aryans and the aborigines in the earliest times is not accepted by Sir Grierson who regards them as much of Aryan origin as other Prakrit dialects and Apabhraría, instead of being one of the earliest Prakrits-the latest phase of the different provincial Prakrits. The latter view is more consistent with the linguistic facts.
.. Bhandarkar, "Wilson Philological Lectures (1914,) p. 106.
