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Studios In Jainology, Prakrit
42
KANNADA WORDS IN DESI STOCK
The stock of Desi words may be said, so far as present knowledge of it goes, to have spread over three patches of the field, viz, the Paiyalacchī Nāmamala (PLM) of Dhànapāla - a lexicon, the Desināmamālā (DNM) of Hemacandra - also a lexicon, and the exhaustive list of Desī words given by Trivikrama in his Prakrit grammar, the Präkrtasabdanusāsanaṁ (PSM). From Hemacandra, of course, we learn that before him there flourished many lexicographers to whom he often refers in his DNM by terms like pūrvācāryah, sarve, eke, anye etc., out of whom he specifically quotes some eight desīkāras; of these eight, unfortunately, only the work of one, viz, Dhanapala's PLM’, has come down to us. Thus, Dhanapala, Hemacandra and Trivikrama are the three available Acāryas who have made valuable contribution to the Prakrit vocabulary in different degrees and in their own individual ways.
Dhanapala's PIM is the oldest extant Desi lexicon. It was composed in the year 1029 of the Vikrama era (972 A.D.)3 He in the introductory stanza of the work, calls it namamala", and in one of the concluding stanzas designates it as desī. But the major number of words in the work are Tatsama and Tadbhava, the Desī ones constituting about one-fourth of the same. He himself says
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