Mahapurana of Puspdanta

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

Page 56

NATURE OF DEŚYA ELEMENT.
The Deść material collected by Hemacandra can be classified under the following types: 1. A part of it consists of good Sanskrit loan words which are used with changed connotation. At tinies, words derivable from Sk. are not considered by Hemacandra as tadbhavas because they are used in a sense different from that of the original Sk. e. g. gharayado (Sk. Shacandra), abbhapisāa (Sk. abhrapiśāca), chuddahira (Sk. kşudrahīra), etc. 2. Deśīnāmamālā contains those words which are not considered by Hemacandra as tadbhavas, because a normal application of rules of derivation fails to identify them. In other words, the vocables have undergone some drastic or not easily identifiable phonological change,? e. g., kuhado (Sk, kubja), challi (Sk. salya), padohara (Sk. prsthagsha) and others. Hemacandra might not have suspected their Sk, origin. 3. Hemacandra has included in his lexicon some words which are taught or derived from words taught by Sk. writers in their lexicons and works. E. g., marāla, phada, varaitta, purilladeva and others. With the help of up-to-date facilities and the means and material before us we are in a better position to say whether a word is tadbhava or desī. But Hema
andra cannot be expected to have the same facilities and scope. In such cases he might be following the authority of some earlier lexicographers. We also find in Deśināmamālā those words which go back to pre-classi. cal period of Sanskrit, i.e., Vedic and an element which possibly goes back to pre-Indo-Aryan, i.e. Indo-European period.' Parallels to these cau be found in cognate Indo-European languages like Greek, Latin, German etc. That element was lost to literary stream of language, and it found its use in Prakrit. R. L. Turner has given a list of Indo-European Reconstruction in his Dictionary of the Nepali language (p.657). L. H. Gray in his article "Fifteen Prakrit Indo-European Etymologies" also has tried to derive underivable Deśī element. (JAOS, 60, pp. 360–369). 5. Hemacandra has also included in Deść collection a few recent borrow. ings from Persian and Arabic, as they might have become current in the language of the country some centuries before his time.3 E.g. angutthalan, 'ring, Persian anguştari, Pehlvi angust; dattharo 'handkerchief,'' Persian dastar, 'a napkin, towel 4 6. Other sources are Dravidian and Munda. Over and above the IndoAryan branch of languages belonging to Indo-European family, we have in India other three families of languages, namely, Dravidian, Sino1. Deśīnāmamālā, Ramanujaswami, Intro. p. 11. 2. Deśīnāmamāla, ed. by Ramanujaswami, Introduction, p. 10. 3. Ibid, p. 11. 4. See Indian Antiquary, vol, XLVI, p. 34,