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IMPORTANCE OF JAIN LITERATURE FOR
THE STUDY OF DESYA PRAKRIT
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The term desi (alternatively, desya, deśaja etc.) has been used in several distinct but interconnected meanings. Ancient Indian works on poetics defined Sanskrit and Prakrit as languages of literature, The latter comprised a cluster of literary idioms (Sanskrit-dependent, considerably 'artificial and highly stylized) like Māhārāsţri, Apabhraíśa, Paišācī, śāuraseni, Māgdhi etc. Sanskrit and Prakrit had to be learnt through formal instruction, and manuals of grammar and dictionaries were periodically composed by way of text books. Prakrit grammars provided a set of rules for Sanskrit poets for turning Sanskrit into Prakrit of different varieties. On the basis of phonological difference and derivability from Sanskrit, Prakrit words were traditionally divided into three categories : Tatsama, Tadbhava and Deśya. Those words which had the same sounds and meaning as their corresponding words in Sanskrit were Tatsamas; those which had modified sounds but the same meaning as their Sanskrit correspondents were Tadbhavas; those which were not derivable from Sanskrit i.e. not accountable either as Tatsamas or as Tadbhavas and hence considered to be substitutes for Sanskrit words of correspondingly saihe meanings were Deśya words.
The Deśya class of words, traditionally used in literary works, were listed with meanings in special lexicons, like Hemacandra's Rayaņāvali (also popularly known as Deśināmamālā), which iself refers to numerous earlier similar compilations. The term defya or desi was usually and most frequently employed in this sense. It designated that stock of Prakrit words which was found in the works of standard Prakrit authors, but which, unlike the rest of Prakrit words, was not derivable (according to the then accepted grammatical canons) from Sanskrit.
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