use of "dravida" in Sanskrit?

Madhav Deshpande mmdesh at UMICH.EDU
Fri Aug 6 12:37:32 UTC 1999


This is what I am trying to find out.  The term Panca Dravida includes
Maharashtrian and Gujarati Brahmins besides the Dravida (= Tamil),
Karnataka and Andhra Brahmins.  This use of the word is obviously not
coextensive with what we call Dravidian language areas today.  The other
uses of Dravi.da or Draavi.da cited by Apte and others seem to refer to
Tamil speakers (like Appaya Dikshita in d.rpyad-draavi.da ... etc).  The
Vizvagu.naadarzacampuu also seems to use this term to refer to Tamil
speakers, and not to refer to speakers of other Dravidian languages. Are
the speakers of Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam (when it is distinguished
from Tamil) referred to by the term Draavi.da in any (pre-modern,
pre-Caldwell) Sanskrit works.  I hope this makes the question more
specific.
                                                Madhav Deshpande





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