Ayan, Dravidian (perhaps too seriously?))

[pclaus at s1.csuhayward.edu]

I have been following the discussion of this topic, and before
the discussion gets cut off, I would like to mention of some
literature which I would think pertinent.  But before mentioning
it, I would also like to point out that not all aspects of
culture change or are absorbed (or are otherwise influenced by
other cultures) at the same rate or in the same way.  What is
being discussed is not a single lump.  Language, ritual, thought,
social structure, etc. must each be approached in a different
manner before ultimately tieing them all together. And,
ultimately, of course, culture means people, with their
particular motivations in relation to other people: culture as it
is being talked about here is how they do it.
 
Furthermore, even with regard to any one of these sets of
information, the picture is by no means consistent.  In looking
at language, eg., we may usefully distinguish a Dravidian
Language Family from an Indo- European one, but acknowledge
mutual influences at (differently) the phonological, grammatical,
lexical, etc. levels.  And to speak of a language as belonging to
one or another family is different than talking about speech
communities, with many languages coexisting and people being bi-
and multi-lingual as well as having varying capabilities in the
community's languages. A genetic approach to the languages of
India may not be as useful (and may yield misleading answers) for
some purposes as a speech community approach.  According to the
latter, one need not see the spread of Indo-European languages in
South Asia as due to any large scale invasion of people, but
rather Indo-European languages as, say, having a prestige value
or being used as a trade language, within a mixed speech
community. Large sections of the speech community may have been
bilingual, or use a secondary language as a pidgin, or various
other levels of competency. One need only think of the situation
with English in South Asia today: there are not, nor ever have
been, many English in South Asia, although the language has
deeply rooted itself in the culture and the speech community. For
discussion of these issues one might read: Southworth and
Fairservis (1989, Linguistic archeology and the Indus Valley
Culture", in _Old Problems and New Perspectives in the
Archaeology of South Asia_, JM Kenoyer, ed.) and Southworth (1990
The reconstruction of prehistoric South Asia language contact, in
_The Uses of Linguistics_, EH Benedict, ed.).
 
A different set of issues is involved in distinguishing a south
Indian Dravidian Kinship System from the kinship system in
Northern India. The former is usually identified as having a
terminology which equates parallel cousins (mother's sister's
children, father's brother's children) with ones own siblings
(children of the same parents) and distinguishing cross cousins
(mother's brother's children, father's sister's children) from
both of these. In Dravidian Kinship, cross cousins are eligible
(sometimes preferred) marriage partners while parallel cousins
are not. In many castes (including Brahman) a mother's brother is
also an eligible marriage partner for a girl (his sister's
daughter).  These characteristics are not found in many areas of
Northern India, and, presumably, are in some way related to what
one might regard as an Indo-European Kinship System. How the
Dravidian System incorporates lineality (patrilineal,
matrilineal) into the family system is variable, but does not
preclude following sashtric gotram rules practiced in the north. 
The same is true of the way exchange of brides and gift are
interpreted and are implemented. Thus, somewhat like language,
but obviously through very different mechanisms, the 'rules' of
one system can be incorporated (or accommodated) in the other. It
might also be pointed out that many areas in northern India where
Indo-European languages are spoken, various degrees of a
Dravidian Kinship System are found.  Clearly, the motivations for
incorporating features of a kinship system into ones life are
different than incorporating features of a language; and, the
consequences are different too, since 'rules' of kinship have to
do with how families are linked to one another and how such
important matters as wealth, property and tradition are retained
within a group. Yet it appears South Asian groups DO alter (or
are sometimes forced by law to alter) various aspects of their
kinship and family structures. In South India, for eg., one finds
living next door to one another people speaking the same
language, but inheriting property matrilineally, patrilineally,
and bilaterally; some allowing sister's daughter marriage, others
not; some favoring cross-cousin marriage, other practicing it
rarely; etc. For further reading on the dynamics of kinship in
South Asia I would suggest Nur Yalman's classic, _Under the Bo
Tree_. Although having nothing to do with any Invasion Theory, it
does give one much to think about regarding the evidence for
interpreting the South and Southerners as Dravidian when they
follow a Dravidian Kinship pattern and having "come from the
north" when they don't.
 
Religion and ritual constitute another set of practices which may
lead to identifying a distinction between Dravidian and Indo-
European, but, again, a different approach to the question is
called for.  Here, because many Indologists are scholars of
literature, I would suggest as a starting point they acquaint
themselves with the work of those doing research on contemporary
practices in the villages.  In addition to several works by
George Hart already mentioned, Stuart Blackburn's essay, "Death
and Deification: Folk Cults in Hinduism" (in _History of
Religions_ , v24, no.3) is a source which contains a number of
good leads.  While Blackburn wisely does not distinguish between
Dravidian and Indo-European, he does distinguish the Folk from
the Classical. which, broadly, may be identified with Vedic
sacrifices.  But even there, he points out, the funerary
practices of even the linguistically Dravidian non- Brahman
villagers have certain resemblances with the Sanskritic sraddha
funerary rituals.  [But, then, too, they have parallels with
Chinese and African rituals, too.] And the sraddha rituals are
not necessarily a part of the most ancient layers of the
Sanskritic practices, and perhaps already evidence an attitude
toward the dead which was incorporated into people's thought from
the outside the community.  What may be more distinctively
Dravidian are the features of performance in the rituals:
narrating the story of dead heroes and laments to deceased
relatives, enactment of the heroes life deeds and possession of
the living by the spirits of the dead. All of these things form a
consistent set for folk Hindu rituals in Dravidian Language
areas.  But they are also found in areas of the north, too. So
here again, as in language and social structure, it is difficult
to make sharp distinctions.  With religious practice,
furthermore, it is not clear what are the motivations for change
and incorporation of elements might be.  Surely there are people
speaking Dravidian languages whose religious ritual is identical
to Vedic ones: did they change languages or ritual practices? How
could we know? Why would they do either? Why should we prefer one
answer over another?  Adoption of ritual practice is not as
difficult as some textual sources would have it, and it is
certain that many Dravidian peoples have put into practice highly
Sanskritic rituals and are (perhaps thereby) regarded as Vedic
ritual specialists, who (reasoning circularly) "must have come
from the north." 
 
 
One of the least reliable sources of information on this matter
is Caste Origin Narratives, including caste 'historical'
traditions (legends, 'genealogies' and other forms) of where they
came from. These are highly manipulable and even when presented
publically for scrutiny, are done so usually by professional
castes whose job it is to establish their patron's prestige (from
which they, too, stand to gain).  Whole histories can be borrowed
from one group to another.  This, of course, happens in written
documents, too.  While interesting from a variety of viewpoints,
they need to be corroborated with other decisive documentary or
archeological evidence if they are to be thought of as 'real
history'.
 
I would not be too pessimistic about reconstructing histories
from any of these forms of testimony, and, indeed, if one is to
know South Asia and its people as a dynamic and changing
civilization, one MUST pursue these matters.  Best, though, in my
opinion, is in small pieces and starting with the present and
going back in small steps, recognizing, with great humility, our
enormous ignorance of (and ideological biases toward) the
histories of the great majority of the groups involved.  I have
been interested, myself, in the past couple of years, in the
pastoral people of the Deccan, whose caste legends would have
them migrating from the north, although there is virtually
nothing in their present culture to support this claim. In the
past 5 or 6 centuries it appears they may have had considerable
effect on the course of Deccan history. Yet, in combing the
English literature written about them, I find only a few pages
reporting on the study of them, most of that by the reports of
19th century colonial administrators and their civil servants,
and much of it unreliable. The only solution that I can see is
that we get off of our chairs and out of the cities and campuses
and do more research in the countryside, collecting more data to
analyze.  We rely too much on the scant and often faulty material
gathered in the 19th and early 20th centuries and desperately
need more data and higher quality data, gathered with the
criteria we now set for ourselves. We speculate more than we need
to, and about issues for which we simply haven't the data, or
don't know how to interpret it when we do. Jayant Bapat's initial
question asks for this sort of speculation and my reply is thus:
there IS no simple answer to the question; someday, maybe ... if
we get to work, today.
 
 
 Peter J. Claus  fax: 510-727-2276  Phone: 510-704-9636 
pclaus at csuhayward.edu