Etymologies of bali (Tam. pali), piNTa

[George Hart]

Two of the more intriguing words in old Tamil are piNTam (Skt. piNTa)  
and pali (Skt. bali, sacrifice).  It would be significant if both  
these were borrowed from Sanskrit or Prakrit -- but it's difficult to  
determine.  As I remember it, Mayrhofer does not have an IE etymology  
for either.  PiNTam could belong in DED 4183 (Tam. pizi, squeeze,  
piNTi, oilcake made of the residue of oil seeds, etc. in many  
Dravidian languages).  Bali does not appear to have any plausible  
Dravidian root.  I am wondering when these words appear in IA and what  
their oldest usages are.  If they are not Dravidian, Tamil could have  
borrowed them from a non-IE source at a very early time from which  
Sanskrit also took them, or, of course, it could have borrowed them  
from Sanskrit/Prakrit.  One similar word that old Tamil has borrowed  
from Sanskrit/Prakrit, probably through the Buddhists or Jains, is  
bhuuta (Tam. puutam), "ghost."  This word, curiously, appears in  
several old Tamil names.  G. Hart