Black and Bright and Beautiful

[Vanbakkam Vijayaraghavan]

----- Original Message -----
From: "N. Ganesan" <naga_ganesan at HOTMAIL.COM>
To: <INDOLOGY at LISTSERV.LIV.AC.UK>
Sent: Friday, November 10, 2000 6:39 PM
Subject: Re: Black and Bright and Beautiful>
> Kamban, the master poet, sees Black color in shimmering Light.

All this has not prevented dravidian political circles lambasting Kamban as
"Ariya adi varudi" which literally means one who massages  aryan feet.
Dravidian political circles have never forgiven Kamban for making a master
kavya on Rama and spread aryanism in Tamilnadu


On Tue, 7 Nov 2000 16:48:57 GMT, N. Ganesan <naga_ganesan at HOTMAIL.COM>
wrote:

>H. H. Hock, Through a glass darkly: Modern "racial"
>interpretations vs. textual and general prehistoric
>evidence on Arya and dAsa/dasyu in Vedic society
>(p. 145-174, Aryan and Non-Aryan in India, 1999).
>
>p. 150-1
>"[6] AryaM prAvad ... svarmi.lhe.sv ... |
>    ... tvacaM k.r.s.nAm arandhayat (1.130.8)
>  Ge: 'Indra helped the Aryan in the battles for the
>  sunlight ... he made the black skin subject ...[8]
>(Geldner's note: 'the black skin'[9] refers to 'the
>black aborgines'[10])."
>
>Some other translations from the RV given are:
>(see the original Skt., discussion by Dr. Hock etc.,
>in his paper)
>
>"Ge: 'Fifty thousand Blacks you defeated. You slit up
>the forts like age [slits up] a garment.' [11]
>
>"Ge: 'Out of fear of you the black tribes moved way, leaving
>behind their possessions without fight...'[14]
>
>There are many more like these.


Like the DMK election posters when Kamaraj was alive, he was called
'Appirikka azhage' in a snide and depracating way. Kamaraj was black, but
the Dravida political parties used to downgrade him as 'African beauty'?

Or like the big cut-outs along the Anna Salai in Madras, where even people
like Mooppanar have rosy cheeks and their faces 'whited out' so that they
are saleable electorally to the Tamil population?

After the glorious  liberation from the clutches of Vedas and Brahmins in
the 20th cenuiry, the "Dravidians" do identical colour racism which anyone
can notice without the dark glass of Sanskritists or the bright gloss of the
Tamilists