Indological quesions on Dravidian/Tamil history

Fri Mar 8 17:16:12 UTC 1996

3/8/96

   Re: Indological Questions
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Tamil is one of the Dravidian languages. Others are Kannada,
Telugu, Malayalam, Tulu, & some non-literary languages
of North India and more importantly, Brhui in Baluchistan.

English Sources:
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R. C. Caldwell is the one who first wrote the book
about these languages & how they form a distint family 
different from North Indian/Indo Aryan
languages.  Murray B. Emeneau, V. I. Subramoniam are
other more recent pioneers.

As a starting point, Kamil Zvelebil's articles about Tamil
and Dravidian languages in Encyclopaedia Britannica are good.
Also see his, Dravidian Linguistics: an introduction, 1990, 156 p.

For relations between Tamil & classical Sanskrit literature,
see G. L. Hart, The relation between Tamil and classical
Sanskrit literature, Wiesbaden 1976.

A. F. Sjoberg, 1) Symposium on Dravidian civilization, 1971, University
of Texas, Austin.
2) The impact of Dravidian on Indo-Aryan: An overview
in Edgar C. Polome, Reconstruction of Languages & cultures, New York, 1992,
p. 507-529
3) The Dravidian contribution to the development of Indian civilization:
A call for a reassessment
in Comparative Civilizations Review, no. 23, Fall 1990, p. 40-74.
S. K. Chatterji wrote a lot about Dravidian substratum in Bengali.

The credit goes to U. V. Saminathaiyar who edited the classical
Tamil works doing a great service.
For beautiful translations from classical Tamil, called Sangam poetry
look at life-long efforts by the late lamented A. K. Ramanujan. He was 
a distinguished Professor at Univ. of Chicago. He won a Macarthur foundation
award for his translations. Especially, his Poems of Love & war
and also The Interior Landscape. To understand tamil stalapurana
trdition, take a look at works by David Shulman. Tamil Bhakti
has an enormous impact at a Pan Indian level. Indira Peterson,
Poems of Siva, Princeton, 1989.
Vasudha Narayanan, 1) The Tamil Veda, University of Chicago press, 1989.
2) The vernacular Veda: revelation, recitation & ritual, 1994.

For How the South Indian kinship varies from that of North India,
see T. R. Trautmann, Dravidian kinship, Cambridge university press,
1981

It has been theorized by generations of scholars, both in India
and from outside that Dravidians lived in India for thousands of years
prior to Indoaryans. Indus valley is an essentially a Dravidian
civilization. Several scholars have proposed that Indus script
is most likely written in a Proto-Dravidian language. See A. Parpola,
Deciphering the Indus script, Cambridge university press, 1994.
Iravatham Mahadevan, a well-known scholar, in a lifelong effort 
has used the Tamil Brahmi scripts (1st century b.c -200 a.d)
as a model to decipher the Indus script. (Few scholars think 
it is in Sanskrit. See the works of S. R. Rao.) I talked to
Dr. R. Nagaswamy, he also thinks Indus valley is mainly Dravidian.

I have collected over the years a big bibliography
of 16000 English articles/books & 70,000 tamil booklist
on Tamil/Dravidian/South Indian culturescape. 
Roja Muttaiyah collected and saved many thousands of rare Tamil
printed books from 19th century. But for him, they would have
been lost. University of Chicago and a Madras trust are building
a fine library in Madras in memory of him. Koeln University 
library has almost 40000 Tamil books. British library has
about 30000. If anybody needs some references, I will gladly 
give the citations on almost any topic related to 
Tamil/Dravidian/South India.

What I have understood from a general reading of the 
papers & books are:
Dravidian words are found in Indo Aryan from early times.
Some are even in the Vedas. All North Indian languages
follow the Dravidian syntax. In fact, the main difference
between Indoaryan & Indoeuropean is in their syntax structure.
Dravidian languages have a lot of terms from Sanskrit.
Among them, Tamil has the least borrowings. However, the syntax
of Dravidian never changed. In fact, it is the other way around.

This is on a linguistic level. On the level of literature,
there are many borrowings from classical Tamil. For example,
Hala's prakrit work saptasatI is influenzed by Tamil interior
landscape poems. The dhvany theory is very well developed in early
Tamil which is found much later in Sanskrit.

T. Burrow, A Dravidian etymological dictionary, Oxford university
press, second edition, 1984, 853 p.

An international bibliography of Dravidian languages and linguistics,
Madras, T. R. Publications, 1994-1995 ($ 30)
vol. 1: General and Comparative Dravidian languages & linguistics
vol. 2: Tamil language and linguistics. ($ 60)

Tamil, other than Sanskrit, possesses a large number of manuscripts.
Many of the Tamil manuscripts remain unpublished. Out of a total of 
25000, there are about 2500 Tamil manuscripts scattered in many 
libraries all over Europe. This century's great Tamil scholars
never travelled to Europe & they knew little or no English.
Some Tamil sangam work or atleast few important prabandham/talapurANam
will be existing somewhere, hitherto unpublished or thought to have been lost.

1) K. C. Chellamuthu, International catalogue of Tamil palmleaf manuscripts,
5 vol. 1995, Tamil university, Thanjavur.

2) A descriptive catalogue of Tamil palm-leaf manuscripts,
The first 3 volumes in 6 parts has come out, Madras. Institute of
Asian studies.

3) G. John Samuel, Palmleaf manuscripts in tamil and their preservation,
p. 85-100, Journal of the Institute of Asian studies, XIII, 1, Sep. 1995.

Sanskrit & Tamil are  the classical languages of India. The literature
and inscriptions are more than 2000 old.  The Chola emperor,
Rajendra's one copper plate Tamil inscription of 1040 A.D. is one of
the longest in any world language. K. G. Krishnan, Karandai Tamil
Sangam plates of Rajendra Chola, Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi,
1984. Tamil inscriptions have been found in Thailand, Malaysia, 
Cambodia, Indonesia, ...
More recently Tamil inscriptions (10th century A.D.) have
been found in Egypt. R. Solomon, Epigraphic remains of Indian traders
in Europe,  Jl. of Americal Oriental Society, 111, 4, p. 731-6, 1991.
article on it. In Ceylon, Tamil Brahmi inscriptions have been found
that are dated in 2nd century A.D.

For an overview of South Indian studies,
Pauline Kolenda, Studies of South India, an anthology of
recent research & scholarship, Madras, 1985, 464 p.

Hope more and more students/scholars of India will take up the
study of Tamil & other Dravidian languages to enhance knowledge
about South India. Hinduism and Indian civilization is truly
a blending of Dravidian and Indoaryan cultures.

N. Ganesan
nas_ng at lms461.jsc.nasa.gov.

Archaeology:
B. Narasimhaiah, Neolithic and megalithic cultures in Tamil Nadu,
Sundeep, 1980, Delhi

R. Nagaswamy, Roman sites in Tamil Nadu: Recent discoveries
in M. S. Nagaraja Rao, Madhu: recent researches in Indian
art and art history. Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan, 1981, p. 337-9.

Vimala S. Begley 1) From Iron age to early history in South Indian
archaeology in J. Jacobson, Studies in the archaeology of
India & Pakistan, Delhi Oxford & IBH, p. 297-319, 1986
2) Rome & India: The ancient sea trade, Oxford university press, 1991

L. Casson, The Periplus Maris Erythraei: text with translation,
Princeton university, 1989

R. Champakalakshmi, Archaeology and the Tamil literary tradition,
Purattava, Delhi, v. 8, p.110-122, 1978.

and so on....