Kadamba

[Whitney Cox]

As a sidelight to Prof. Hart's comment on Ta. ka.tampu => Skt.
kadamba, it's perhaps worth noting that the southwestern
dynasty that call themselves the Kadambas (with the dental, as
far as I know) are referred to by their contemporaries and
rivals as the Ka.dambas, with the retroflex.  See for instance
the Kauthem plates of Vikramaaditya V (1009 CE, ed. Fleet IA
Jan. 1887), ln. 9: 

kavalitanalalak.smiir durjayaurjityahaarii
vihatap.rthuka.dambaa.dambaro mauryanirjit

A Sanskrit poet of the eleventh century would presumably have
referred to the flower as kadamba, but reserves the more
Dravidian spelling for the proper noun. 


---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:56:43 -0700
>From: George Hart <glhart at BERKELEY.EDU>  
>Subject: Re: Kadamba  
>To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
>
>Take a look at this:
>
>http://images.google.com/images?q='Anthocephalus%20cadamba'
>
>According to the DED, Skt. kadamba is (not surprisingly)
Dravidian --  
>Tamil kaTampu, kaTampam, Telugu kaDambamu, etc.  It was worn
by the  
>veelan, a low-caste priest of Murugan, when he became
possessed.  One  
>wonders why the retroflex disappeared in Sanskrit -- perhaps
the  
>voicing of the -T- (stops are voiced in Tamil/Malayalam when
they  
>appear intervocalically) was heard more prominently than the  
>retroflex.  The -T- retroflexed in all the Dravidian
languages cited  
>by DED.  It also gives a variant Sanskrit form, kalamba.
>
>George Hart
>
>On Aug 19, 2008, at 9:57 AM, mkapstei at UCHICAGO.EDU wrote:
>
>> Thanks to all who answered my query.
>> There seem to be several Latin designations
>> for the same plant in this case.
>>
>> The very useful Pandanus database
>> suggests "wild cinchona" as the English name,
>> but I am puzzled by this: "cinchona" generally
>> names several quinine-yielding species in
>> South America. Is it possible that, after
>> the invention of the gin and tonic, drunken
>> malaria victims began to see quinine bushes
>> everywhere?
>>
>> Matthew
>>
>> Matthew T. Kapstein
>> Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies
>> The University of Chicago Divinity School
>>
>> Directeur d'études
>> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris