Govala/Golla and tamil KOvalar tribes

[Lakshmi Srinivas]

--- "N. Ganesan" <naga_ganesan at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> Online Tamil lexicon entry:
> *kOvalar* = 1) men of the sylvan tract, 2) herdsmen
>
> There are 100s of references for "kOvalar" as
> herdsmen in Sangam poetry and Alvar/NAyanmAr bhakti
> corpus.
> An example:
> kuRuntokai - "pal An2 kOvalar"
> tEvAram - "kollaivAyk kuruntu ocittuk kuzalum Utum
> kOvalan2um"
> (Krishna is the cowherd called Kovalan here.)

kOvalan < gopAla?
>
> In old times, Gollas were called "Govalas", usually
> rendered in English as Goalas. An example:
> Sir. Herbert Hope Risley, The People of India, 1908,
> Calcutta,
> p. 28:
> "In Bihar or the United Provinces the casteless
> tribes,
> Kols, Korwas, Mundas, and the like, who have not yet
> entered
> the Brahminical system, occupy the lowest place ...
> Then
> come the vermin-eating Musahars and the
> leather-dressing
> Chamars. This fisher castes, Bauri, Bind and Kewat,
> are
> a trifle higher in the scale; the pastoral *Goala*,
> the
> cultivating Kurmi, and the group of cognate castes
> from
> whose hands a Brahmin may take water follow in due
> order,
> and from them we pass to the trading Khatris, the
> landholding Babhans, and the upper crust of Hindu
> society."
>
> Obviously, tamil "kOvalar" > Govala (=Goala) >
> Golla.

The common Hindi word for cowherd is "gvaala". Would
it perhaps be less strained to derive it from Skt.
gopaala?

Another point for your consideration. The ancient
Tamil name for the town of kOval (tirukkOvalUr) is
iTaikazi. kOval could actually be a rendering of
iTaikazi, influenced perhaps by the first part of the
more obscure iTaikazi.

(The name iTaikazi for the town seems to have been
inadequately appreciated :-) and in time seems to have
been totally superseded by kOval. The word iTaikazi
itself seems to have reduced in meaning from town to
temple to a passage in the temple. This progressive
reduction in meaning is evident as we proceed from
AzvAr hymns to commentaries on the hymns to
hagiographies.)

Warm Regards,

LS

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