Telugu history

[Bh. Krishnamurti]

At 08:19 02/05/98 -0600, you wrote:
>Mr. D. V. Sarma write:
>" This is the limit I think. Do you really believe that God prefers Tamil to
>Sanskrit..."
>
>Are you setting the limit?? Who gave you that power? God?
>
>Mr. D. V. Sarma wrote:
>"You quoted somebody to say that Sanskrit is a rough language".
>
>There is a 13th century zrIvaiSNava commentary, very revered among
>all Vaishnavaites. "muraTTu samskritam" occurs there.
>A. K. Ramanujan, a legend and whose about ten letters to me I treasure,
>translated "muraTTu" as "rough-sounding" in a *Princeton
>university* publication, 1981.
 >Mr. D. V. Sarma write:
>"Do show some consideration for the feelings of other people
>on the list".
>
>My record for about 4.5 years in Indology can be checked
>to see whether I have indulged in personal invectives.
>I have given 100s of references on Dravidian/tamil/south indian
>bibliographical items for which I have received innumerable
>thanks, both public and private. If you want I can compile who
>all thanked me.
>
> Mr. D. V. Sarma writes (in the same posting, a little earlier)
>"Tamil arrogance is equally abhorring..."
>
>Whenever Tamil's antiquity is even hinted at, fury comes.
>We are repeatedly told that we are
>regional/parochial/political/short_sighted/chauvinistic/arrogant/
>narrow_minded/.... What are the political overtones and
>undercurrents?
>
>I do not agree that these are true.
>I am glad that you are not.
>
>When the Sanskritization of Malayalam, a dialect of tamil until
>10th century AD can be studied, is it wrong to ask a preliminary
>question on sanskritization of Telugu?
>
>Regards,
>N. Ganesan

Mr. Ganesan:
Please think about it yourself that you should not masquerade as a scholar
of either Indology or Dravidology. Then people will ask you what are your
credentials? Please let the people know what  you have published in these
areas? This list must be confined to those who have a scholarly curiosity
and not any other. I mentioned in my posting that your inquiry itself  was
political and you denied it. I will tell you how.
        You started with a naive notion that Tamil has not been susceptible
to Sanskrit as Telugu did. Then you raised a silly question if it was due to
many brahmins moving from Tamil Nadu to Andhra? What kind of scholarly
inquiry is this? What is your evidence of Brahmins moving out into Andhra,
when and why? What are your sources? All that you wanted to "establish to
the sholarly world" was that Tamil had less of Sanskrit vocabulary and
Telugu has more without any studies or evidence.

        If you had a sense of history, you should have known that Tamil was
the most influenced by Sanskrit between pre-CE and the middle ages. Because
West Coast Tamil was the most influenced and it later became Malayalam. If
you had a scholarly bent of mind you should have asked the question why was
Tamil influenced first by Sanskrit so extensively  than the other languages?
That would have helped many persons including me to know things that we did
not. know. Because, I never bothered to know this aspect although it was
interesting.

         Pre-CE Tamil borrowed more words from Sanskrit and Prakrits than
any other Drav. language. We had no records. Sanskrit and Pkt. s- became
zero in  borrowings in Early Tamil; thus you have avai <sabha: 'assembly',,
amaya  <samaya 'time', e:Ni < se:Ni <sre:Ni 'ladder', a:yiram <sa:siram
<sahasiram <sahasram- '1000', and many others.

        Emeneau said in his study of Indian onomastics that the use of
Sanskrit in naming  persons and places is the phenomenon of "Sanskritization
on a grand scale". Toda and some other Nilgiri languages are an exception.
What does it m