Etymology of Skt. rAma (part 2 of 2)

[Periannan Chandrasekaran]

Skt. rAma's derivation from Tamil roots - part 2 of 2
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[draft]
Periannan Chandrasekaran
perichandra at yahoo.com

There are multiple routes possible:
-----------------------------------
All of them must take care of the prominence to the "m" phoneme
in the word "rAm" especially when deriving from Ta. irA or Ta. iravu.
Accounting for the phoneme "rA" is straighforward from Ta. irA, irum
etc.

But from the discussion above it is clear that inroduction of the
"m" phoneme is not going to be diffiuclt at all since that phoneme
is the soul of another root in Tamil meaning "black" and "viSNu".
1. Skt. rAm < ....< Ta. irA
2. Skt. rAm < ....< Ta. irum
3. skt. rAm <...< Ta.

We take route #1 which involves the most work to account for "m".

Skt. rAm <...Ta. irA.
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It must be noted that even from the "irA" root, adding
"m" to extend is frequent when the word ends in the long vowel "A".
This is witnessed with respect to most classical Tamil names for
trees (which interestingly are usually one syllable and end in "A")
which have "trivial" alternate names by extending them with "m".

Ta. marAm < Ta. marA = cadamba
Ta. viLAm < Ta. viLa  = wood apple
Ta. kurAm < Ta. kurA   =
and so on.
[Note: it is interesting to recall the story involving vAlmiki
being trained to utter rAma by strating with the tree name "marA"
or "marAm"!. Also note that the tree "marA" seems to be the tree
for Tamils since the simplest word for that tree involves
the simplest instance(s) of the pattern identified above for
classical Tamil names: yA, A.
Also note that the name for mango tree is: Ta. mA. and
dark complexion of a lady in akam poetry is often
compared to the young leaf of mango tree.
kamparAmAyaNam itself uses this to describe Sita's forehand:
kampan:2(ayOtiyAkANTam):685:3]

Here it must also be noted that the word-final long vowel "A"
in words conforming to certain patterns such as
 "<short vowel><the long vowel "A>"
can have a transformation yileding another word ending with the phonems
"avu" and/or "avam" with the same sense:
Ta. viLavam < Ta. viLA
Ta. kuravam < Ta. kurA
Ta. cuRavu /cuRavam < Ta. cuRa = shark
Ta. naRavam < Ta. narA

Dropping of word-initial "i"
----------------------------
It is common to drop the  word-initial "i" followed by "r" or "l"
especially in colloquialisms:
Ta. (colloquial) rA < Ta. irA.
Ta. (colloquial) rAvu < Ta. iravu < Ta. irA
Ta.  (colloquial)      ravai < Ta. iravu etc.

"v"/"m" interchange:
---------------------
And since both "v" and "m" are at leat partly labial, "v" <->"m"
interchange
is expected. And it is attested by the Tamil rules of prosody for
assonance
 where "v"/"m" are assonant pairs.

Skt. rAma < rAmu < Ta. rAvu < Ta. irA
Skt. rAma < rAm < irAm < Ta. irA
skt. rAma < rAvam < iravam < Ta. iravu < Ta. irA
Skt. rAma < rAm <
< Ta.rAman2 (applying "v/m" interchange)
< Ta. irAvan2 <
< Ta. irAvan2 ("v" cementing consonant)
<Ta. irA + Ta. an2 (male singular nominal suffix) < ta. irA

Conclusion:
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I have attempted to establish the framework for deriving Skt. rAma
from Dravidian root words. It would also be interesting to see
1. any IE roots/cognates  for rAm in the senses of beauty and of
darkness
2. Any known Skt. texts using rAm in the sense of darkness also.

Regards
Chandra
Atlanta, GA.






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