Aryan invasion debate

[C.R. Selvakumar]

  nanda chandran <vpcnk at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
*
*No, I never said that the origin of dravidian civilization lies in brahmanic
*origins. No, IF they're indeed a seperate race, they definitely had a
*seperate culture. But what is now presented as the 'cultural achievements'
*of the dravidian culture - literature, music etc undeniably show Arya
*influence. Eg - SilapathikAram, Thirukural are JainA works. Manimekalai is a
*Bauddha work. Both religions and especially their founders have infact taken
*pride in being 'Arya'.

     Would you say just because we have works in English expounding on the
     Buddhist philsophy or the Jainist philosophy, the American and
     British (or Western) language(s),
     literature and culture are undeniably of Indian influence ?
     Tamil has works like cIRaappurranam of the poet umaRup pulavar
     on themes of Islam and thEmbavaani a work on Christian themes and so on.
     Undoubtedly various schools of thought engaged Tamils at various
     times and it is a fact that Tamils contributed significantly.
     The native spiritiuality of tamils qualified all that came from
     outside and all that was produced within its culture.

     By the way the tamil work tirukkuRaL is not a Jaina work,
     though it is often claimed so.
*
*Even the astika traditions - the nAyanmars and the Azlwars - have brAhmanas
*in their ranks. The great philosophy of Vishitadvaitam, a brAhmanical
*contribution, which represents the highest point of the Azlwar school in
*terms of systematic philosophy is itself the base for the Saiva SiddhAnta
*philosophy.

     The fact that brAhmanas are there in the ranks of nAyanmars, along with
     'Dalits' and others show the catholicity of the religion.
     The brAhmanas may be people who have accepted Vedas
     like Tamil Christians who have accepted Bible,
     but apart from the few differences in spiritual and cultural
     practices due to their  'religion' or 'sub-religion' they are
     by and large Tamils in their ethnicity, language and culture.
*
*What I'm trying to say is that though the Tamils might have had original
*ideas in the fields of philosophy, literature and music, it was the 'Arya'
*or brAhmanic influence which systematized, refined and perfected it. Even
*the highest points of the Southern Saiva school in terms of  systematic
*philosophy is a brAhmanic contribution - the works of Appaya Dikshita and
*Nilakanda.

    The Saiva Siddhantha was systematised by
    Meykandaar who is not a brAhmana
    and the Saivite school is in part crystallized by Sekkizaar
    who wrote PeriyapuraaNam. Sekkizaar is also not a brAhmana.
    Undoubtedly Tamil brAhmanas who are as much Tamil
    as PaRaiyar or PaLLar or Mudaliyaar or PiLLai, contributed a lot
    to Tamil cultural stream over the past 2000 years. The only problem
    is brAhmanas of non-tamil origin, who came from the north at various
    periods, not knowing the tamil roots, try to
    propagate the 'arya-centric' view as you are doing.
*
*This can also be seen even in the case of Carnatic music - which as Vidhya
*pointed out before might have non-brAhmana origins - for it was
*PurandaradhAsa, ThyagarAja and Muthuswami Dikshitar who have systematized
*and refined it to its current form (or atleast so have I been told).

     Tamil music, a branch of which today is called Carnatic
     music,  is more than 2000 years old but in the last 50-60 years,
     there is undoubtedly a tendency to sing mostly the 'Trinity's
     krithis and there are also a large number of brAhmana exponents.
     The art of Carnatic music is in no small measure advanced by
     great Naagasuram players none of whom is a brAhmana (except may be one
     or two who are not exponents anyway).
     In short what you are claiming is a gross distortion.

*And even in terms of language - brAhmanas have shown as much loyalty to
*Tamil - Tamizh Pattru - as 'dravidians' themselves. And their contribution
*in terms of literature - both ancient and modern - can match dravidian
*contribution in terms of quality, if not quantity.

     Most of the Tamil brAhmanas are dravidians!
*
*Inshort, it seems to me that dravidian culture has no identity of its own
*apart from its brAhmanic counterpart.

     There are people who have declared that it is a shame to call
     Tamil a language when it has got only a few letters in the alphabet
     which are different from the Sanskrit and now you think ('it seems')
    'dravidian culture has no idenity of its own'!
     Nothing new! Just as incorrect as ever!

     (I hope I will be excused for this long post)    /C.R.Selvakumar