Studies in Desya Prakrit

Author(s): H C Bhayani
Publisher: Kalikal Sarvagya Shri Hemchandracharya Navam Janmashatabdi Smruti Sanskar Shikshannidhi Ahmedabad

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(DN. 6, 66 TSET = Jata:) in view of Gujarati qaj: 953311 (6, 8 = चरणाघात:) पट्टआ as shown by Gujarati पाटु. Besides this lexical importance, the Deśya materials of the Dešinämamālā prove to be a valuable source for data on Middle Indo-Aryan word-formation in view of several suffixes. like 3, , -3, -3, -3417, -531, -5, gry, Foto etc.
From quite a different angle the Desināmamālā proves further its great importance for us. Numerous items are useful for shedding light on the cultural condition prevalent in the later part of the first millenium. Names of severai popular festivals, customs and games are recorded by Hemacandra. We may draw attention to the explanations of words like 31521uft, 3100gti, 37150907, 31101 - a61, sf117:07, 3181, etuit, fi gz2AT, 09321, afici, 91393371, HEIS779T, AI, ana, 1959ÈT, gfi 311 etc. We have here very rich materials for studying religious, sociological and economic aspects of the society of those times.
Trivikrama's Prakrit grammar is almost wholly dependent upon Hemacandra for its section on the Deśya words, and it is quite obvious that Hemcandra standing at the dawn of New IndoAryan also symbolized the end of fresh lexicographical activity in Prakrit.
Before we close this brief account it is necessary to point out a third source of information about the Deśya expressions, for which all the credit goes to the Jain writers. Since the period of the Cūrņis Jain writers practised a style of writing in which Prakrit was liberally interspersed with Sanskrit. From about the eighth century another style becomes current in which the Sanskrit is characterized by an undercurrent of Prakrit that becomes in course of time more and more pronounced and vigorous. The narratives found in the Bhāșya, Carita, Dharmakathā, Kāvya and Prabandha literature of the Jainas are composed in a peculiar kind of Sanskrit, the so-called Jain Sanskrit, which contains numerous Prakrit (and later on, New Indo-Aryan) words, expressions and idioms