potters, brahmins, and RSis (contd.)

[S Krishna]

I must first of all start off by saying that when people want to shoot a
theory down, it would be a good idea to offer a reason as to why
something cannnot be true(It would also help others learn about the
accepted/coorect etymology). I don't mean to sound like I'm preaching to
the scholars here, but I find the method of shooting down a theory
through mere hand waving and terse statements very unhelpful; I would
appreciate a discussion giving a better derivation of the word.....


S.Palaniappan says:
> Thesociological phenomenon of Sanskritization is replete with such
occurrences. Let me give some examples.
>
>The goldsmith community in Tamilnadu are known as  taTTAr or AcAri. In
theirnormal day-to-day conversation, they will use the form "AcAri"
pronounced as "AsAri".  The VaiSNavite brahmins of Tamilnadu used the
caste title "AccAri", pronounced as "AcchAri". For instance, the full
name of the first
>Governor-General of India, Rajaji, would be written "irAcakopAlAccAri"
in
>Tamil. The goldsmith community has a Sanskritized identity "viZvakarma
brAhmaNa". To emphasize that, in formal documents like marriage
invitations,they will always use the form "AccAri", even though their
own dialect has only "AcAri". It is hard to explain the extra "c" except
by the need to move up socially. I think a similar but reverse process
is at work in Karnataka. A Kannada brahmin told me that they drop the
final "i" in "AchAri" and use "Achar" to differentiate themselves from
"AchAri" the name used by the goldsmith community in Karanataka.
>

There are a few points to be noted here..1. It is true that this
Sanskritization business and the tendency to move up the caste system
has become common for some time, but was this always the case? All the
examples, I can think of, i.e. the Marathas in Maharashtra claiming
Kshatriya descent, some of the lower castes in Maharashtra claiming
themsleves to be Maratha for social prestige(Shivajirao
Patil-NilangEkar, the ex-chief minister of Maharshtra being a good
example who tagged on the title "PaTIl" inspite of not being
marAThA) or people with the surname "sA~vrE" changing to the Brahminical
"sAvarkar"., are all examples of need for social mobility from the 1600s
onwards. There are similar stories about Kammas in Andhra
Pradesh,BhumihArs in Bihar; the ways in which they tried to
claim "ancient" origins/high caste is relatively a new phenomenon.
I believe that this has been discussed by the sociologist M.N.Srinivas
in his "Sanskritization" process but I'd be surprised if we found this
phenomenon as early as the period that is refered to as "Ancient
History"(<800 C.E.)...The earliest examples of this , as far as I can
see are the example of the Chola Kings( 10th-11th century in the case of
rAja rAja chOla) that you mentioned and the stories of the conversions
to ZrivaiShNava sub-sect from the 13th century onwards from the lower
castes by dangling the carrot of "caste-promotion".......

As far as I can tell, around the time that the word "angIras" came into
play(think this word is mentioned in texts belonging to the "manusmr~ti"
*period*), was there this kind of urge/tendency for caste mobility? and
consequently were all these derivations for high sounding caste names
valid in this historical period? My understanding has been that in
Ancient India, people seemed not to have cared for this kind of thing
because caste wasn't heriditary...the problems started only when
everything became hereditary.....


According to the Tamil lexicon( the six volume behemoth published by U
MAdras in 1936), the word "aggi" is mentioned as occuring in the
"tiruviLai"( abbreviated form) which I take to be
tiruviLaiyATArpurANam(I saw no explanation in the preface for the
abbreviations of specific texts)...this is traced(atleast in parts) by
Dr William Harman as belonging to the literary period of the
CilappatikAram, whose date he accepts as the fifth century C.E. Even
allowing for this, I believe it can be shown that the word does occur in
Samskrt before that(can't give you a reference off hand other than my
memory of seeing it in some part of the manusmrti), which would mean
that the word occured in samskrt before it occured in Tamil......

I also would like to know as to what significance fire had( if any)
in the rituals of the ancient Tamils? I see a parallel between
Palaniappans trying to trace the etymology of angirasa from tamil aggi
and the tracing of the names of certain kinds of flowers in Sanskrit to
Tamil by Hart( as an example, we have Tamil kuvaLai-sanskrit kuvalaya);
here Hart proves that flowers were very important and a must in the
ancient rituals of the Tamils and were absent in the corresponding vedic
texts. You have mentioned something about Harappa
but did fire ( or pottery, related to the fire in terms of manufacture)
play an important part in ancient Tamil worship ritual? The only reason
why I brought this up is because I see a parallel between this
derivation and Harts work; if this is not true, I would request to be
excused.

 I would appreciate any comments,corrections and information on these
questions.

Regards,
Krishna

>Another source of evidence of deliberate manipulation of names is the
>inscriptional material. The Chola inscriptions provide a scientific way
ofstudying this process. The Sanskrit portions of the Anbil Plates of
Sundara Chola and the Leiden Plates of Rajaraja show that in trying to
create aSanskritic geneology for the Chola kings, the scribes converted
"vaLavan2" one of the names used by the Chola kings  such as in "kiLLi
vaLavan2" "karikAl vaLavan2", etc. into "vaLabha" as the name of a
mythical ancestor in the solar race.
>


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