Mahapurana of Puspdanta

Author(s): Ratna N Shriyan
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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DEŚYA WORDS FROM THE MAHĀPURĀŅA
cons which according to him appear to have been taken from Kannada.
He has given a list of words peculiar to Jaina Sk. occurring in Bșhatkathākośa of Harişena (10th Cent. A. D. )' in his Introduction to this work. He has made a five-fold classification of peculiarly Jain Sk. words such as found in works like BỊbatkathākoša, namely,
1. Words recorded in Lexicons and which are of rare usage, 2. Back-formations, 3. Hyper-Sanskritisms, 4. Prakritisms straight-way borrowed from Prakrit and 5. Vernaculars.
In the notes or glossaries to the above mentioned texts edited by him he has noted down the deść words. He expresses his view regarding Deśī as follows:
"The source of the so-called dest words including roots is a problem. Some appear to have been borrowed from the Dravidian languages; some are obscure Sk. words, changed in sound or sense beyond easy recognition; many of them were used in Indo-Aryan popular speeches but were not admitted in the standardised and refined literary usage; and some had currency in specific areas. Lastly a few remain as difficult to be explained".
Maralydhar Banerjee has edited Hemacandra's Deśínāmamālā, in the Introduction to which he discusses the problem of desi. He expresses the following views about desz:
"The theory of the Non-Aryan Origin of dest words is not borne out by investigations into the Non-Aryan languages. Beyond repeating vague generalities no scholar has yet shown that the dest 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 deść words that cannot be traced to Sk. origin have came from the various 'Deśabhāṣās' - or provincial vernaculars of Aryan origin of the outlying provinces - which have perished transmitting these words in their modified forms to the Literary Prakrits or to the Modern Aryan Vernaculars of those provinces that succeeded them. The desi words have no equivalents in Sk. because Sk. has developed from the 'Deśabhāṣā' of Madhyadeśa which is preserved in a later literary form in “ Sauraseni ". The presence of the same dest words or their modified forms in the modern Aryan Verpacu. 1. BỊ, K., Intro, pp. 101-110.