18 THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY. [January, 1873. lent descriptions of the grammatical structure of these dialects, it is to be regretted that only a very small portion of their stock of words has become known. Our ignorance of the Prakrit vocabulary is partly owing to the circumstance that, besides the Prakrit passages of the Sans¬ krit dramas—if we except the Buddhistic Pali writings—a portion only of one larger Prakrit work has been edited.* Sanskritists are deterred from the task by the paucity and bad condition of the Prakrit MSS. But another equally im¬ portant obstacle to a fuller ^cploration of the Prakrits is the entire want of native vocabula¬ ries, which could do the same service to the student of the Prakrits as the Amarakosha and kindred works did and still do to the Sanskritist. The method of teaching in the Brahmanical schools, as well as the testimony of various writ¬ ers, make it certain^ that such vocabularies ex¬ isted and were accessible very recently. But no work of the kind has, to my knowledge, as yet been made known. I am happy to be able, to a certain extent, to fill this gap in our knowledge of the literature of the Prakrits, as I have recently obtained a copy of a Destsabdasamgraha, written by the famous Jaina Polyhistor of the twelfth century, Hemachandra or Hemacharya, which contains about 4,000 Prakrit words, together with expla¬ nations in Sanskrit. The MS., of which have obtained a loan only for transcription, comprises according to the colophon 8,325 slokas (agglo¬ merations of 32 syllables each) on 74 folios. Its date is Samvat 1587. It is correct and in good preservation, except that the upper edges of some leaves have been gnawed by rats, whereby in one instance two half lines and on several pages a few letters have been lost It is writ¬ ten in Devanagari characters, but presents the archaic forms of letters usual in Jaina MSS. Hence it is frequently very difficult to distin¬ guish between u and o, between tth and chchh, and between jjh and bbh. Besides the text of the DesiSabdasamgraha, which is written in Prakrit Aryas and gives
- I mean Halit’s G&th&kosha, a part of which was pub¬
lished, together with a German translation by Prof. A. Weber, in the Abhandlunoen der J). M. Get. 1870. f K. g«f Bhinudlkshita, who quotes a DesTkosha in his commentary on the Amarakosha, Aufrecht, Ox/. Cat., p. 182a. | Both text and commentary are Hemachandra's work as may be seen from the introductory verse:—Desi duhsanda- bha prutyah sandarbhitapi durbodha | A'cbar'ty&hemachandrastattim sandfibhati vibhajati vai, and from the colophon of the book,—ityAchartya s'rf Hema- chandravirachiti svopajnadbes'Isamgraba vritUvasht&mo vargah Bamiptab|| the Desi words with Prakrit equivalents, the MS. contains a Sanskrit commentary.^ The latter explains each De6i word in Sanskrit, and contains also frequently discussions on doubt¬ ful forms. At the end of the explanation of each verse, one or two Prakrit sentences have been added, in order to illustrate the use of the Desis explained. Thus each word is repeated three times. The book is divided into eight Vargas, viz.—I. Svaravarga ; II. Words begin¬ ning with gutturals ; III. Words beginning with palatals ; IV. Words beginning with linguals ;
- V. Words beginning with dentals ; VI. Words
beginning with labials ; VII. Words beginning with the liquids ra, la, ra ; VIII. Words beginning with sa and ha. The words under each letter are arranged according to their length, and according to their meaning. First come those that have only one meaning, in the order of bisyllabics, trisyllabics,* tetrasyllabics, and so forth ; and the words having more than one meaning make the conclusion. The first four verses of the text give the defi¬ nition of the term De6t, and define the scope of the work. They run as follows :— am PiPrsrui srtft iiii hii w ffrrr ftrer w7TTPfcr9pji vpr iUOrer t P’tii iiii j&rfaiNraRrSlT 3R<nrr i Wt mull
- Glory to the language of the Jinendras,
which is difficult on account of the employment of parallel passages not explained by the com¬ mentators (^ama),f of categories** and of proofs, the secrets of which got to the hearts of the wise, and which comprises all otherjanguages.ff tViraijjai jai—MS. suhasaK may also be read suhau. The metre is Giti or Udgfch&. Tatparyabhedinah sadps'npath&h !
- Nava vastve kades'agr&hinah sy&dv&di virodhinobhi-
pr&yavishes'ah | naigamasamgrahavyavahar aji jusAtras'abdaaamabhir&t- dh&e vambhutabhidhunah l| ft Apara utkarsho y fid aa'esh abb aah&rt pat vena parina- mate | yad&ha devfi daivim narfi n&rtm s'abaras'ch&pi rfibarim | Tirtyanchopi tairas'cbim menire bbagavadgiram |J ’evambh&tfr jinendran&m arhatfim v&nl jayatiti samban dhah |
