Studies in Desya Prakrit

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

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Roots and word-stems which had resulted from obvious phonological modification of their Sanskrit correspondents (tadbhava-s). (iii) The rest of words, which as wholes of form-and-meaning could not be derived from Sanskrit by applying the usual and accepted rules of phonological and semantic change ((desya-s ). The last of these categories was authenticated through compilations of standard Deśī lexicons. In his Siddhahema grammir, Hemacandra accomplished the task of providing codified rules for deriving the tatsama and the tadbhava classes of words. His DN. covered the remaining desya class. His commentary on the DN. opens with the observation that those words which could not be derived from Sanskrit through the admissible rules based on the phonological processes of omission, addition and alteration were collected in the DN.
While defining the scope of his subject, Hemacandra has made it quite clear that he was not out to compile a dictionary of all such words which were during his times colloquially currrent in various regions i.e. the words of regional dialects currentiy used in day-to-day intercourse. His task was to deal with only that class of underivable words of literary Prakrit which was handed down over an immemorably long and hoary tradition.
As previously stated, the purpose underlying the composition of Prakrit grammars and lexcions was always to provide to those well-versed in Sanskrit dependable, convinent and up-to-date aids for composing and understanding Prakrit literature. Hemecandra came at the end of a long line of Deśikāras. Some ten are actually cited or referred to in the DN. Hemacandra justifies his adding a new Deśí lexicon to the several previously existing ones broadly on three grounds : (1) Some of these works, comparatively of a recent date, Hemacandra found to be erroneous, careless and un. critical. The ignorance or misinterpretations, on the part of their authors, of earlier authoritative works had created