On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 11:10 PM, <palaniappa@aol.com> wrote:

2. cā-/cēma-nt-i> cēmantī > tēvanti 

One problem with this is that it cannot explain the variant Tēvantikai. The second problem is that tēvanti is not attested in any literary or colloquial usage. In Tamil, the only forms known are cāmanti, civanti, cevanti, and cevvanti.

 sēvantika is listed in Monier-Williams' Sanskrit-English Dictionary as well as in Turner's CDIAL.

Problems with devavandhyā are several: Haplology involving -v- in the Dravidian languages usually results in an elongated vowel (as devāndhyā) or a double consonant as in  dēva-vacaṉam > tēvvacaṉam (தேவவசனம்). Furthermore, devavandhyā doesn't explain the spelling variation of tēvantikai and tāvanti. Most importantly, a barren woman of gods doesn't make much sense semantically.