potters, brahmins, and RSis

[DEVARAKONDA VENKATA NARAYANA SARMA]

At 03:22 AM 9/30/97 -0400, you wrote:
>I have always wondered about the meaning of the Tamil word  pArppan2ar
>meaning  brahmins . Commonly, the word  pAr  means  to see , and so the word
> pArppan2ar  can be translated as  seers  (DED . But, we know of no use of
> pArppan2ar  to denote seers. It just meant brahmins. Even in the Sanskrit
>tradition, all brahmins were not seers. Nor were all seers brahmins. So what
>was the basis for the Tamil word  pArppan2ar ? The clue was provided by my
>research on the Tamil root  pA  meaning  to extend, spread, stretch .
>
>The semantics of the root  pA  meaning  extend, spread  and related words are
>really fascinating and they give some interesting insights into the
>Tamils /Dravidians  view of things. There are several words in Tamil which
>can be translated as  to see . They are 'kaN/kAN, nOkku, pAr', etc. Tamil
>also uses nouns of the form  pAr  derived from the root  pA . One such use
>denotes  earth/world , because it is an extended/spread place. The word  pAr
>can then be explained as indicating the fact that eye sight is the most
>extended sense of perception. We can see stars lightyears away. The distances
>over which we can perceive through other senses are much more limited. In
>other uses of the noun form,  pAr  also means the axle of a vehicle
>presumably because it is an extended rod as well as the coral reefs under the
>sea which by their nature extend/spread.
>
>Another word with the meaning  extend/spread  is  para/paravu  (DED 3255),
>which, I strongly feel, is related to the root  pA . (I think the process is
>similar to tA-taru, and vA/varu.) In fact, conventionally  pAr  (DED 3255),
>the earth, is explained on the basis of   para . Interestingly,  paravu  with
>the basic meaning  extend/spread  also denotes  worship, reverence, adore,
>sing  (DED 3257). For instances puRanAn2URu 335.12 has  nel ukuttup paravum
>kaTavuLum ilavE  which can be translated as  there was no god to sing/worship
>along with the pouring/offering of paddy .
>
>The use of  paravu  in verbal worship is a known fact in Tamil. What has not
>been realized so far is the use of  pAr  in the same context. This can be
>inferred from  pAr  occurring as part of  pArATTu  meaning  to applaud,
>commend, eulogize  (DEDS 656).  pArATTu  is a compound made up of  pAr  and
> ATTu . One of the meanings of ATTu is  to shower, bathe, immerse . This can
>be seen from the following.
>

There is an intriguing thing about the corresponding word for brahmin
in telugu. It is not with ordinary `r' but with `R' the sakaTa rEfa.
Thus in 7th century inscriptions we find the word `pARa' used for
brahmin. In the classical literature we find `pARuDu' , `pARuvADu'
denoting brahmin.

Some telugu scholars feel that this is due to mixing up of the two
`r's. But I do not think so for the following reason.

In the evolution of a language the natural tendency will be to replace
the difficult to pronounce or difficult to write letters with easy ones.
In telugu the tendency as far as I know has been to replace `R' with `r'.
I am subject to correction on this point.

For the root `pa' or `paravu' denoting spread we have, in addition to
the `r' form (`parapu'), we have also the form `PaRuchu' with the same
sense.

Now my question is, how strong is the etymological evidence for
derivation of pArpan from `pAr' to see.

sarma.