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Introductiom
I
5
he says he does not consider the Verbal Substitutes as desi words, he inoludes some of them in his lexicon and says that he has consciously done so in accordance with the practice of previous writers. Thus in I. 13, he says that ki is & Prakrit substitute for the Sanskrit root -- but he has included the word 3752i = 311724 in his lexicon qarati . In IV. 11 he says that it is a desi word in the sense of 'a palanquin.' He has perhaps forgotten that in his grammar I. 217 he derived the word from Skt. 1. So in V. 29 ' Brahman' is taught as & deśī word but in his grammar I. 166 it is derived from Filar. In a few cases he expressly says that a word taught by him is derivable from some Sanskrit word as for example in I. 18, 39, 43, II. 104, III. 2 etc. Hemacandra excuses himself by saying that he included such words in the work if Henna or संस्कृतानभिज्ञप्राकृतज्ञमन्यदुर्विदग्धजनावर्जनार्थम्. Again Hemacandre has included in the lexicon many words which are actually taught or derived from words taught by Sanskrit writers in their lexicons and other works. As Dr Bühler has observed in the introduction to the Pāiyalacchi "a student of Prakrit.........who has the Petersburgh Dictionary [ or for the matter of that any good Sanskrit Dictionary such as that of Mr V.S. Apte or Para vastu Srinivasachari] at his disposal, can easily convict Hemacandra of numerous errors and show that he, too, in spite of his rare knowledge of Sanskrit and Prakrit, of his large library and numerous assistants, has mistaken scores of tadbhavas and tatsamas for Desi forms because the passages where the Sanskrit words occurred, were not accessible to him or not present to his mind.” (p. 13 ) Thus ar & milkpa il' is reckoned a desi word in VI. 37 because Hemacandra does not happen to remember that it is used in Sanskrit in the same sense. Again in VI. 55 is found focal in the sense of an Asura. This is clearly & bhaict of naca (cf. Hc. Gr. ii. 163 ) occurring in Sanskrit in the same sense. In VI, 90 duvit is said to be a desī word in the sense of a lizard. But wait in Sanskrit also sigoifies the same thing. And Dr Bühler in a note to his Introduction to the Pāiyalacchi (p. 12 ) draws attention to the fact that
Ega, the Sanskrit prototype of Tag ( II. 100 ), in spite of Hemacandra's denial, signifies also the moon. Hemacandra includes in the lexicon words whose Sanskrit equivalents can, by JEMI or metaphorical use, signify the meaning assigned by him to the Prakrit word. In II. 97 he teaches the word Tot in the sense of :. The word is evidently derived from Skt. Tüs, which like flag can mean a fool. Lastly Hemacandra includes in his work such words as आहित्थ, ललक, विड्डिर etc. which he himself says in his grammar (II. 174 ) are provincial expressions, i. e, harizachriccate
#:. We thus see that neither Hemacandra nor his predecessors strictly follow the definition of deśī word formulated by him. The term desi seems to have been understood in a very wide sense by the lexicographers. They seem to have denoted by the term all the words of the Prakrit dialects which are the desya or vernacular languages of the time, Thug, for instance, Dhanapăla calls his Painculacchi a desī or desi sāstra.
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