Day is night in Dravidian?
Venkatraman Iyer
venkatraman_iyer at HOTMAIL.COM
Mon Apr 26 12:05:21 UTC 1999
>B1. On the contrary, naL is not a very frequent item inside the CT
>corpus and it is difficult to be sure of its exact meaning
>(it probable has to do with "middle"; should be connected with naTu
>& naTuvaN)
> + We meet 7 times with the expression naL iruL, like in:
> kuRun 107-3: naL iruL yAmattu "in the dense dark of midnight"
> perum 155: naL iruL viTiyal puL ezhap pOki
> "birds awake from sleep at dawn when darkness flees" (Chelliah
> 1962:115)
Does the `naL' in naL iruL yAmattu & naL iruL viTiyal mean
a) 'middle' OR b) 'black' ??
> + What about PuRam 246-15: naL irum poykai
> ("large pond [of lotuses]", Hart 1975:103)
I am reminded of the discussion on dharmasastras' prohibition
against sea travel (travel across the 'black sea'). There are
sangam poem phrases describing sea as 'black'. In that light,
naL irum poykai = black, big lake.
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