Hinduism: once was: RAJARAM EPISODE

[N. Ganesan]

SH>but I believe it is not at all
SH>clear whether the inhabitants of the Shakyan polity including
SH>Gautama himself (and of the nearby V.rjian confederacy) were of
SH>Indo-Aryan origin -- given the proximity of those states to regions
SH>still inhabited by many people of Tibeto-Burman or Austro-Asiatic
SH>ethnicity.

Dravidian cannot be excluded from Buddha's ethnicity analysis either.
Like Krishna, he married his cross-cousin, a practice
much prevalent in the south so much so it gets the name
Dravidian kinship. (Cf. T. Trautmann's works).

Perhaps just after few centuries of bilingualism,
kinship remains, but langauge is IA.

>Well, till Indology came along, non-Buddhists in India also understood the
>word Arya to simply mean noble.

This is not correct bcause of old and significant exceptions.
Sangam Tamil texts take Arya to mean Northeners only.
But in later times, in 9th century Kamban and so on, Arya is
taken to mean noble.

Regards,
N. Ganesan


_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.