Siva and Vishnu (was: Kinship systems)

Mon Nov 6 19:08:09 UTC 2000

On Mon, 6 Nov 2000 15:55:31 GMT, N. Ganesan <naga_ganesan at HOTMAIL.COM>
wrote:

>"V.C.Vijayaraghavan" <vijay at VOSSNET.CO.UK> wrote:
><<<
>Can you tell me when do the words "Saivam"   and  "VaiNavam" occur
>in the Tamil literature. For example do they occur in the Prabhandam
>or Nayanmar works itself? or do they occur much later?
>
>As far as I can see these words are the Tamil translations of the
>English words Saivism and Vaishnavism. But the Tamil texts themselves
>were unaware  of 'ism's. But still it would be interesting to know
>when do these two words in the sense of 'isms's appear in the Tamil
>texts
>>>>
>
>Really surprised at this, because literally hundreds of attestations
>of Saivam and VaiNavam are found in Tamil literature of the
>pre-British period. I don't know whether you can read Tamil, or
>anything about your knowledge in Tamil literature. Tamil texts talk
>a lot about sectarian rivalry between different religious groups, and
>it is incorrect to claim that "Tamil texts themselves were unaware
>of" Vaishnavism and Saivism or, about the nonexistence of frequent
>skirmishes between the two. Well recorded in tamil texts and
>inscriptions from the Pallavan era.
>
>The problem may be due to incorrect usage of transliteration in
>Cologne tamil e-base. A close equivalent of the scheme, first
>in Madras university tamil lexicon is employed in the Cologne website,
>and Tamil is the only Indian language differing very significantly
>from Sanskrit syllabaries. Also, note that many important tamil
>texts like Perungathai, Naalaayiram (Alvars' paasurams), their
>commentaries, ka.laviyal, shaiva siddhantam works are not yet in
>the Cologne ebase.
>
>Vishnu:
>Comparing with the tamil, "mAl" = "black" and Vishnu-Narayana is
>"mAl" in earliest texts, nArAyaNa seems to come from drav. naL-
>(telugu nal-) meanig "black". This preference for black, dark (night)
>would have been a factor in the acculturated Aryans recruited
>from Dravidian speakers in the differences between Avestan gathas
>and Vedic texts: "there there are many other observations, such as
>about the preference in Avestan for day-time rituals, as opposed to
>Vedic rituals which were performed at night [cf.atirAtra]."
>[quoted by Dr. G. Thompson].
>Skt. rAtra itself is said to come from Dravidian (tam. irA, iravu,
>rAtri), and tamil nAL-mIn2 refers to nakshatrams of the night sky.
>OTOH, the idea of the apocalypse seems to get into the bible
>from Iran; It will be interesting to see whether 'black as
>evil' gets into the bible from Iran?? The RV definitely
>talks of "black" enemies and so forth.

There are too many speculations resting on other speculations which makes
the whole edifice shaky. Mal meaning Vishnu/Narayana in earlier Tamil texts
somehow gets "merged" with with Vishnu-Narayana. But you are not convinced
about the derivation of Narayana from a non-Sanskritic root especially Nal
in Tamil. Hence your "seems". If what you say has any validity, you must
show where Tamil texts which predate sanskrit texts or oral tradition,
where a divinity is spoken of as a mere 'Nal' or something very close. can
you bring forward any evidence to that effect? About the seemingly day
rituals / night rituals of Gatha and Veda somehow having a bearing on
"cculturated Aryans recruited from Dravidian speakers" (which itself is
another speculation), is like saying that the English who crossed over to
America rejected Monarchy due to the recruitment of native American Indians
being accultured as the English. You may equally say that the English who
stayed at home were "pure" and the English who made the Declaration of
Independence were basically native Americans with English sounding names -
with Massachusetts an Indian name being an appropriate centre of the
rebellion of native Americans against English. If you are going to
speculate along these lines,
it leads us nowhere. Your meaningless speculations are revealed in your
Ratri in Skr being "said" to come from Tamil Iravu? Why not it be the other
way around? Again you will be making a solid case for what you say if you
can bring more textual evidence? or at least if you can bring words of
proto-Dravidian . After all if at all vedic sanskrit came into contact with
anything , it would have been proto-dravidian and not dravidian. I also
notice that whenever you talk of "dravidian" it is with 99% certainty
Tamil. If you are so much into Dravidian studies why don't you bring other
20 Dravidian languages? why everything revolves around Tamil? If you really
want to prove a dravidian connection , you must bring a whole series of
Dravidian languages from Brahui down to Telegu and show me how depending on
the geographical proximity to the original source of Vedic sanskrit ,
somewhere in Upper India, how the word changes slowly take place . To begin
with , can you say what is the word for "black" in a whole series of
Dravidian languages? I am sick of looking at only Tamil examples for
anything "Dravidian". To me it looks like Tamil chauvinism than
scholorship. About your "interesting" observation of "black as evil" in the
Bible coming from Iran (presumably the racist aryans)-another meaningless
speculation- there are two possibilities to satisfy your curiosity- a. Jews
and other semites don't need to learn racism from aryan texts, it is
inborn. b. Jews in their sojourn in Egypt learnt it from the Egyptians -
after all the Pharoahs loathed the black people in Sudan and southern Egypt
and waged exterminatory campaigns against them. About "RV definitely talks
of "black" enemies and so forth" there is a contradiction in what you say.
If you are so definite, why are you putting in black in apostrephes? That
itself shows you don't realise what are you writing.  Anyway interpreting
RV in racial terms is a colonialist habit which the present-day Indologists
have grown out of.

>Siva:
>In the old Northwest, word initial k- has turnes into sh-.
>Ziva meaning red as well as auspicious is common in Dravidian.
>My suggestion that Ziva is Dravidian can be found in:
>a) ziva < *kiva < drav. kema(=good/auspicious/red) (23 Dec 1999)
>http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind9912&L=indology&P=R11011
>b) zimIdin, ziva, zibi (30 Dec 1999)
>http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind9912&L=indology&P=R13503
>
>Comparable k- to z- words:
>i) karko.taka (25 Nov 1999) = drav. "gem-giver"
>http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind9911&L=indology&P=R17156
>ii) zaikya (related to steel) < Drav. *kEku/ tamil cEku
>http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind0009&L=indology&P=16985
>iii)kEkaya, zAkya (Buddha's clan), Ehu Saantamula, and tamil cEku/eHku
>http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind0010&L=indology&P=R9925

Are you not taking accidental factors like redness, auspiciousness and
relating it to Shiva? I can think of dozens of attributes of Shiva- matted
hair, snake, meditation, husband of Parvati and so on. Why only Tamil words
Cem- be somehow related? who not dozens of other words? And if you are so
sure Cem in Dravidian is auspicious and red, how about other languages in
the group? Why all your speculations and cogitations are Tamil-centric. If
you talk of Indo-European family of languages, there are hundreds of words
known even to laymen- ordinary everyday words- which resonate in the entire
group? Why the word Cem= auspiciousness not resonate in any other language?

>
>Though minor in the Rgveda, the subsequent rise
>of Shiva and Vishnu as 'great gods' (mahadeva) appears to
>do a lot with Dravidians whether they changed to speaking IA
>or not.
>
>Regards,
>N. Ganesan

These are again speculation - indicated with your "appears".

Your thesis rests on inconclusive and non-committal words like "appears",
"seems". "said to" and so on. Speculations rest on other speculations which
depend on accidental factors. Also you hardly go out of Tamil - that too by
and large modern Tamil- with no concept of proto-Dravidian. All this makes
it wishy-washy