Indological Studies

Author(s): H C Bhayani
Publisher: Parshva Prakashan

Page 38

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Literary and Performing Arts
names of Prakritic or popular origin is evidenced, as we shall see, in the case of the name of another Uparūpaka also, which is found as Srigadita in Bhoja, but as Sidgaka (or Singaka) in earlier sources.
5. In Prakrit we find domba or dumba as the name of a low caste. There seems to have been a measure of free variation in Prakrit in the case of pre-cluster e and 0, which we find spelt varyingly as e, i and o, u respectively.
We also find dombilaga (Paṇhāvāgaraña, 1-4) and dombilaya (Samarāiccakahā, Jacobi’s edition, p. 286), which are diminutives of domba formed with the suffix -la-ga- (-la-ya). We find another diminutive also, dumbadaa (Ākhyānakamaņikośa, 15, 20. Prakrit Text Series, No. 5, 1962). The feminine bases corresponding to the masculine bases domba, extended dombaya and the diminutives dombila, dombilaya are dombi, dombiyā, dombili and dombiliyā (variant forms dumbiliyā, etc.). Hence the name of the Uparūpaka in which the Dombi (or Dombiliyā, etc.) i.e., a Domba girl was the central figure.
In Harişeņa's Bịhatkathākośa (931-932 A.D.) we find the form dumbili for the dombilikā of other sources. This (or dumbiliā) might have been the immediate basis of the Sanskritized form durmilitā (or durmilikā). Dumbili or Dombili was perhaps felt to be unrefined or low-brow. So pedantically durmilikā (or durmilitā) was substituted for it, and now the designation became etymologically transparent and directly meaningful : The theme being some clandestine love affair, it involved difficulties of rendezvousing for the lovers (durmilana). So durmilika or durmilita was felt to be quite appropriate. The pedantic urge to establish somehow inherent significance of the name has been responsible for creating the Sanskritized form durmilikā (or durmilitā,), as also S'rigadita, for which, see further below. IIJ. Sidgaka and S'rīgadita.
6. Among the eight Uparüpakas defined in the verses cited