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INTRODUCTION
is meant only to serve the principle of economy the grammatical treatises aim at1 and does not represent any genetic or historical development of these words from Sanskrit. They can be explained only by assuming the existence of spoken Prakrit dialects, referred to as Desabhāṣās, in the different provinces from which the Tadbhava words showing. the latter changes were borrowed and not from Sanskrit. Of course these provincial spoken dialects were of Aryan origin. And the Tadbhava words of the literary Prakrits are thus derived from the spoken Prakrits of the different provinces and not from Sanskrit Vedic or Classical both of which are literary languages. Vedic and Classical Sanskrit itself is derived from the spoken Prakrit of a particular province, the home of Vedic and Sanskrit culture-the basin of the Sarasvati and the Jamună. And it was indistinguishable from that Prakrit before it became a literary tongue, in a remote, pre-Vedic age.
Now the case of the Deśī words may be taken up.
The theory of the Non-Aryan Origin of Desi words is not borne out by investigations into the Non-Aryan languages. Beyond repeating a few vague generalities no scholar has yet shown that the Desi words are found in any of the Non-Aryan languages or, if found, they are the original property of those languages and were not borrowed by the Non-Aryans from the Aryan vernaculars of the provinces where they came in contact with the Aryan settlers. It is quite possible that those Desi words that
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1 See Introduction, p. xxxv.
2 The Natya Sastra, 17-24, refers to Desabhāṣās; the Vipakaśruta and some of the other Angas mention "ee"-'eighteen Deśabhāṣās." These refences are evidently to the provincial vernaculars as distinguished from the grammatical Prakrits.
