Teaching Sanskrit (Tamil originals --> Sanskrit)

[nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov]

     Re: Justification of teaching Sanskrit
     *************************************
    
   Tamil Originals & Sanskrit Renditions
   ***************************************
  
Here are some more examples of Tamil originals rendered into Sanskrit
and at times, passed on as originals.

1) tiruviLaiyATal purANam --> hAlAsya mahAtmya
2) periya purANam --> Sivabhakta vilasam
3) civan~AnabOdham as sections of Pauskaragama

This issue has been ably treated in the following papers:

a) William P.Harman, The authority of Sanskrit in Tamil Hinduism: 
A case study in tracing a text to its sources,
The Mankind Quarterly, v. 27, n. 3, Spring 1987, p. 295-315.

The author demonstrates the problems involved in tracing the literary
sources of a well-known mythical account of the origins of the city and
temple of Madurai, in Sourhern India, due to the Hindu notion that
any religious text worthy of honor must have Sanskrit origins.
The ramifications of this notion are explored in the context of Tamil 
literary history and Hindu religious sensibilities.

b) William Harman, Two versions of a Tamil text and the contexts 
in which they were written.
Journal of the Institute of Asian Studies, v, 1, 1987, p. 1-18

The borrowing of poetic metres occured both ways. In ancient
times, the Jain author of Jeevaka Chintamani and Kampan borrowed
viruttam metre into Tamil from Sanskrit. On the other hand,
Saptarsi, the author of Mohin Vilasak Kuravanji (published by
Tanjore Saraswathi Mahal) has used tamiz AsiriyappA/ akaval metre
in Sanskrit poetry.See Prof. Indira Peterson, The play of the 
Kuravanji fortune teller, Workshop on Cultural production and
Cultural History in the Middle East and South Asia, Univ. of
Pennsylvania, 1993.

Sathyanad Kichenassamy (kichenas at math.umn.edu) wrote:
To: Members of the list <indology at liverpool.ac.uk>

>(2) Also in answer to Dominik W., here are two examples of
>Sanskrit translations of works in other languages which may be
>illuminating:

>  a. J. Filliozat, in his book on the Tiruppavai lists several
>translations (from Tamil to Skt.) which were passed, at times,
>for the original. The translations are rather inaccurate.

>  b. Some people found fault with one of TyAgarAja's operas
>in Telugu, on the grounds that there was no Sanskrit source
>for its subject-matter. A friend of his forthwith composed
>secretely a Sanskrit version which was then presented as 
>the original, thereby legitimating the composer (!).
>[The opera was, I think, NaukA caritram. Details can be
>found in Sambamoorthy's biography of TyAgarAja.
>Of course, TyAgarAja, a contemporary of Beethoven, is
>a major classical composer.]

A similar story is told in "The Authority of Sanskrit in Tamil Hinduism":
In a night-long religious narrative performance of the Goddess story
(Devi Jagaran) somewhere in Rajastan, an actor of the group "was convinced that
one of the episodes in his group's repertoire, "The story of the Devotee
Tararani" was spurious. He says that it must be omitted. But his fellow
actors assure him that the story had canonical authority. Several said
that they were sure it had appeared as Sanskrit drama, but no one was able
to satisfy him by producing the text. Finally, he took out a newspaper
advertisement, offering a substantial reward for anyone who could
lead him to a copy of this alleged Sanskrit text. When still no one 
was able to produce it, he finally won his way ..."

>It therefore seems that it is indology which should be
>defended as a discipline. 


Also, see the following post by Prof. George Hart

*****************************************************************************

             Relations between Dravidian (Tamil) and Sanskrit

 
Actually, Sanskrit has many Dravidian syntactic features as well as loan 
words from Dravidian.  A few of these are very old -- even as old as the 
Rig Veda.  Clearly, Sanskrit came to be spoken as a second language by 
Dravidian speakers, and, as is common in such situations, these speakers 
transferred syntax from their native languages into the new language.  
Such features include the use of api, of iti, and of evam, and also, I 
believe, of certain compounds.  These ARE Indo-European words, not 
Dravidian, but their usage is equivalent to similar particles in 
Dravidian languages (e.g. Tamil -um, enRu, taan).  Prof. Murray Emeneau 
has written at length on this phenomenon.  The North-Indian Indo-Aryan 
languages are even more akin syntactically to Dravidian languages.  I 
have tried to show that many of the major conventions of Sanskrit 
literature, and especially of poetry, come from a Dravidian poetic 
tradition (e.g. the messenger poem such as Meghaduta, the idea of lovers 
suffering in separation during the monsoon, etc. etc.).  The fact is, it 
is not possible to talk about Sanskrit as a separate "non-Dravidian" 
tradition -- the truth is far more complex.  George Hart.
 
Presumably, the people who adopted Sanskrit (or something akin to it) in 
North India didn't have a highly developed literature -- there are still 
some Dravidian languages in N. India like that.  On the other hand, 
history is full of cultivated languages that have been replaced by less 
developed newer ones -- e.g. Elamite speakers started speaking Persian 
and Elamite disappeared.  People tend to speak whatever language gives 
them influence, prestige, and the ability to survive -- to some extent, 
English has this function in modern India (at least in some parts, e.g. 
IIT's).  Most areas of the earth have changed their language 3 times in 
HISTORICAL times (at least this is what I learned in a linguistics class 
at Harvard a long time ago).  I wouldn't say Sanskrit is Dravidian -- it 
isn't.  But it has many intriguing "Dravidian" features not found in 
other (non-Indian) Indo-European languages.  (Retroflexes, for example 
-- called murdhanya in Skt).  This stuff is interesting, isn't it?  GH
 
One of the most intriguing contributions of the Tamil area to Sanskrit 
is the Bhagavatapurana.  It is pretty universally agreed that it was 
written by a Tamilian and that it is filled with motifs and themes from 
the Divyaprabandha and other Tamil literature.  Its author also uses 
"Vedic" forms -- sometimes incorrectly! -- to try to make it sound old 
and hoary.  This work has catalyzed Bhakti movements all over India and 
is, arguably, one of the most important works in the Sanskrit language.  
An example of a Tamilism is the word avamocana, "inn."  This occurs 
nowhere else in Sanskrit -- it is clearly a translation of Tamil viTuti.  
On the other hand, the greatest poet of all Indian literature, Kampan, 
took his story from Sanskrit.  There has been an enormously productive 
interchange between Sanskrit and Tamil.  GH