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xxvi
DEŠINĀMAMĀLĀ
the Prakrits and Vernaculars must be admitted. These words have come into the dialects from the languages of the aborigines whoin the Aryans conquered."
Dr. P. D. Gune admits that some of the Desī words collected in the Pāialacchīnāmamālā and the Desināmamālā are " of other than Sanskrit extraction" and "some of the words are clearly Dravidian."
The views of Sir George Grierson on the origin of Prakrit and its different elements best accord with the linguistic facts preserved in the literary Prakrits and in the modern Indo-Aryan Vernaculars. He considers Classical Sanskrit, including Vedic of which it is a lineal descendant, to be derived from one of the “Primary Prakrit dialects” of the Vedic age, “but fixed in its existing form by the labours of grammarians which may be said to have culminated in the work of Pāṇini about the year 350 B. C." These Primary Prakrits are now lost, not being preserved in literature. Out of these arose the literary Prakrits—the earliest specimens of which are Pali, Jaina Ardhamāgadhi, the edicts of Asoka-and the middle stage of which is represented by the Prakrit dialects of the Dramas and Jaina Mahārāştrīand the last stage of which is to be found in the literary Apabhramsas. All these he calls the Secondary Prakrits. Then by an extension of the term, the modern Aryan vernaculars that arose about the 10th century A. D. from the local Apabhramsas are called by him the Tertiary Prakrits.
Speaking of the Deśya words Sir George Grierson writes :
Another class of words is also to be mentioned, the so-called "Desya" or "local' words of the Indian Gram1. Ibid p. 108.
Gune, 'Introduction to Comparative Philology,' p. 221. Grierson, "The Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. I, pp. 127-28.
