Dravidian in Indology: a note

[Swaminathan Madhuresan]

A while ago, Dr. Houben wrote about Dravidian derived from
Vedic Sanskrut:
>Some lingering doubts remain, however, with regard to the stock of
>basic terms, the Dravidian lexemes, which according to some, as we
>all know, are all direct or indirect vikrutis of Vedic Sanskrut.
>Although the latter view is difficult to prove or disprove, it would
>seem reasonable to take guidance from the Sanskrut language itself
>and its infinite semantic potential (Shakti) if we deal with texts
>from the great Vedic tradition from Samhitaas to Mahaabhaarata and
>Puraanas. What is more, those who want to proceed in this direction,
>need not start with a difficult period of trial and error, since some
>great scholars have already shown the way: I think especially of
>N.V. Thadani's inspired translation of the Miimaansaa suutras with
>highly enlightening introduction (Mimansa: The Secret texts of the
>Sacred Books of the Hindus, Delhi, Bharati Research Institute, 1952).

Pl. read the following data from Indologists:

"Until the founding of the Madras Orientalist school, scholars, who
had assumed that all the languages of the subcontinent had a common
origin, had been almost exclusively concerned with the Aryan languages
of North India due to the relationship of these languages with the
classical languages of Europe and the exciting implications this
connection suggested for the origins of western civilization. In 1849
Alexander Campbell continued the work of Ellis and was able to demonstrate
that: "It has been very generally asserted, and indeed believed,
that the Teloogoo has its origin in the language of the Vedums ...
[M]y inquiries have led me to the opposite conclusion ... Teloogoo
abounds with Sanskrit words ... nevetheless, there is reason to believe
that the origin of the two languages is altogether distinct" (xv-xvi)."
(E. Bryant, p. 61, Aryan and Non-Aryan in India, HUP, 1999)


"While the Calcutta Sanskritists put Sanskrit into relation to the
languages of Europe by means of the Tree of Nations scheme they had
brought with them to India, their ideas of the languages of India
were strongly influenced by the ideas of their teachers, the pandits,
from the science of linguistics or vyakarana, in which of course the
Indians were more highly advanced than any other of the ancient
civilizations. Accordingly they read the doctrine of eternal Sanskrit
and the derivation of all languages from it by a process of corruption
as true, but true only within India; that is, they believed in the
linguistic unity of India and the derivation of its modern languages
from Sanskrit. This was the prevailing view of the Calcutta Sanskritists,
in 1801, and as then expounded by their great leader, H.T. Colebrooke,
in his important essay on the Prakrit languages.

  To be sure, that linguistic unity was not quite absolute: Colebrooke
asserted the Sanskrit ancestry not of all languages spoken in India,
but of all polished languages, that is, the ones with writing systems.
Even in Jones we meet the idea, which became general, that the people
and languages of the hilly regions may be pre-Aryan, a kind of
altitudinal ethnology according to which savages rises to the top,
and civilization floods the agricultural lowlands. Jones had said that
nine tenths of Hindi vocabulary is Sanskrit-derived but the remaining
tenth is foreign, and may be Tartar, which in his ethnology means that
of a nomadic and unlettered people - the first enunciation of a linguistic
substratum in India (1807:3:33-34). Still and all, the doctrine of
linguistic unity of India covered the vast majority of its people.
It derived the lettered Dravidian languages from Sanskrit, so that
the discovery of the Dravdian language family had to make its way
*against* the prevailing view put out by the Calcutta Orientalist
establishment."
(T. Trautmann, p. 282, Arayn and Non-Arayn).

With the Rgveda parts as late as 900 BCE, and the Classical
Tamil texts dating to at least 300 BCE, neglecting the
Dravidian component in Indology will not produce a whole
picture of ancient India.

Regards,
SM



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