Book Title: Studies in Jainology Prakrit Literature and Languages
Author(s): B K Khadabadi
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

View full book text
Previous | Next

Page 456
________________ Studies in Jainology, Prakrit and carige secms to be from the Prakrit cariya (-ka). The word naccani as derived from nartaki quite baffles us. Actually, I think, naccani is from the Prakrit naccani (dancing woman) peculiarly developed from naccana (dancc). 16 The word jigule is mainly a case of metathesis jalūkā jalugā jagūla jigule. The word dewa appcars to have been borrwed from Prakrit with a semantic change. And lastly, developments in words like gaje and jamta (d>j)? can be called individual crcations arising out of some psycho-physical capricc, or scribal errors crept in at some stage of a manuscript tradition of the concerned literary work.18 Now this study of the Apabhramsa Chapter in the Sabdananidarpana leads us to the following conclusions: Kesiraja called this chapter Apabhramsa Prakarana using the term Apabhramsa after the manner of ancient Indian grammarians and rhetoricians. This term stands here for tadbhavas, to which he explicitly refers in surtra 256 and declares there alone his objective of teaching us the ladbhava words as derived from Sanskrit into Kannada. But in practice, in addition to these words (Class V), he also teaches us Prakrit words and words derived from Prakrit (Classes I to IV) besides several other words of complicated nature (discussed exclusively). Of the total collection of words in this Chapter, the Praksta and Prākṣtabhavas together far out-number thc Samskrtabhavas. The early Jaina teachers and scholars seem to have played a major role in augmenting the Kannada vocabulary by deriving or borrowing words largely into Kannada frorn Prakrit. Some early Kannada literary works at Kesiraja disposal seem to have embodied weightly quotations in Prakrit. Kesiraja, himself a Jaina scholar, who is also influenced by Prakrit grammar, must have had at lcast some idea of the influence of Prakrit on the Kannada vocabulary. But he does not express here anything like this, probably because of the grip of Sanskrit grammatical system and tradition on him (as is also found on other Kannada grammarians). Keeping this in view, one could also say that Kesirāja is technically right in calling all these words tadbhava, because of Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 454 455 456 457 458 459 460