Dear Indologists,
I apologize for
the length of this post. I summarize its contents first. Those who are
interested in the details can read further.
In multiple
Internet posts N. Ganesan has mentioned an article of his entitled, "A Dravidian Etymology for Makara - Crocodile," published by the International School of Dravidian Linguistics in
2011. (See Attachment 1 for the article.) In this article, Ganesan offers
new etymologies for words meaning crocodile such as Sanskrit makara, Sanskrit nakra/nÄÂkra,
Tamil mutalai, and Tamil viá¹Âaṅkar/iá¹Âaṅkar. As far as I can see,
the article seems to have serious flaws from the viewpoints of linguistics and
philology. While usually an article of such a nature might not receive any serious
attention from scholars, the fact that it is said to be published by
International School of Dravidian Linguistics suggests that it undergo scrutiny
by scholars.
In the discussion
below, I point out some of the problems I see in the article and I would
appreciate any comments from the members of this list.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Etymology for
Sanskrit makara
Dravidian Etymological
Dictionary (Revised edition, abbreviated as DEDR) entry 4952 gives the
following words for crocodile.
4952 Ta.
mutalai, mutaḷai, mucali crocodile. Ma. mutala. Ko. mocaḷ.
Ka. mosaḷe, masaḷe. Koá¸Â. mosale. Tu. mosaḷè, mudalè, mudaḷè,
mÅ«dalè. Te. mosali. Kol. (Kin.) moseli. Pa. mÃ…Âca. Koná¸Âa
(BB) mÃ…Âdi, mÅ«di. Kur. (BB) bÃ…Âca. Malt. boce. / Cf.
Skt. (lex.) mÄÂcala- crocodile; (lex.) musali-
house-lizard; alligator; Pkt. muduga- = grÄÂhaviśesa-.
Based on the above
entry, Bh. Krishnamurti has given * mÃ…Âc- / *moc-Vḷ as the Proto-Dravidian form for the word
for crocodile. (Dravidian Languages, 2003, p. 13).
However, on p.7 of
his article, Ganesan states, "The Proto-Dravidian root for makara is *mokaray- a verbal noun from the verb, *mok-/*moṅku- 'to eat greedily in large mouthfuls, eat voraciously,
devour, gobble, swallow' (DEDR 5127+4897)."
DEDR entries 4897 and
5127 are given below.
4897 Ta.
mukku (mukki-) to eat in large mouthfuls; mokku (mokki-), mokki-ttiṉ-
to eat greedily in large mouthfuls. Ka. mukku to eat in a certain
manner, put any dry grain, etc., into the mouth with the hollowed hand and
gobble; mukkuḷ, mukkuḷe mouthful of water for rinsing the mouth, rinsing
the mouth, cleaning the teeth; mukkuḷisu to rinse the mouth, spit out,
abandon, reject. Tu. mukkuni to gobble, swallow, devour; mukkÄÂvuni
to over-feed (tr.); mukkele voracious man; mukkuli, mukkuḷi
mouthful of any liquid; mukkuliyuni, mukkuḷiyuni to gargle or rinse the
mouth. Te. bokku to eat greedily, stuff the mouth and eat
voraciously, gobble. Kui muka (muki-) to cast food into the mouth
with the hand; mukal mouthful; mukal giva to rinse out the mouth,
take a mouthful, gargle. Kuwi (Isr.) buk- (-it-) to gobble,
swallow. Cf. 5127 Ma. mÃ…Âkuka.
5127 Ma.
mÃ…Âkuka, mÃ…Ântuka to drink, sip; mÃ…Âyikka to give to sip; mÃ…Âval
a gulp. Kur. mÃ…ÂxnÄ to eat (anything except cooked rice); pass.
or refl. mÃ…ÂxrnÄÂ; mÃ…Âxta'ÄÂnÄ to cause or allow someone to eat. Malt.
móqe to eat (as meat or fruit). ? Ta. moci (-pp-, -tt-) to
eat; mÄÂntu (mÄÂnti-) to eat, drink, experience, enjoy Cf. 4897 Ta. mukku.
I do not understand
how Ganesan could get the Proto-Dravidian 'root' *moṇku- from these
entries.
Having postulated *mok-/*moṅku- from DEDR 5127 and 4897, Ganesan states:
"The Dravidian verb, mok-/moṅk- transforms
to moc-/moñc- in south Dravidian languages."
As far as I know,
there has been no basis for such a context-free transformation mentioned in any
work on comparative Dravidian phonology. (Moreover, as one can see above in
DEDR 4592, the words for 'crocodile' in north Dravidian languages, Kurukh and
Malto, also have -c- and not -k- in DEDR 4952.)
Then Ganesan goes on
to say:
"Hence
Kannada and Telugu have mosale or mosali (< *mokaray), and Tamil and
Malayalam derives its mosale> motalai > mutalai from the
same verbal root, mok- with -r- > -l- alternation in the
South."
Ganesan has not
presented any evidence of -oka- transforming to -oca- or -osa- in south Dravidian languages. So,
in my opinion, Ganesan has not provided an acceptable Dravidian etymology that supposedly
explains Sanskrit 'makara' as well as Tamil mutalai.
Etymology
for nakra/nÄÂkra
Ganesan also has
given an etymology for Indo-Aryan words for gharial, the long-snouted
crocodile.
On p. 4 of his paper,
Ganesan says, " The god Śiva
in Tamil bhakti texts of the first millennium, is extolled as either nakkar or
viá¹Âaṅkar indicating Śiva’s nudity and his virile lingam in
particular. These epithets for Śiva and his lingam have origin in the names for
gharial crocodile (Section 3.0). When viá¹Âaṅku is used, it indicates the
naked bhiká¹£ÄÂá¹Âana youth going rounds in the streets and attracting women: maṉaikaḷ
tÃ…Âṟum talai kai ēnti viá¹ÂaṅkarÄÂkit tirivatu eṉṉē? (Tevaram
7.6.1)."
The interpretation of
Tamil viá¹Âaṅkar as indicating a naked Śiva is simply not valid according to Tamil
philology. Indeed the
text quoted by Ganesan is translated by V. M. Subramanya Iyer in the Digital
TēvÄÂram edition (from EFEO, Pondicherry) as "what is the reason for wandering from
house to house, assuming a beauteous form and asking alms, " where he
translates viá¹Âaṅkar as 'beauteous form†(http://tinyurl.com/p7vg2wl). That viá¹Âaṅkar
is not naked is shown by TēvÄÂram 7.36.3, another verse by Cuntarar, the same
person who authored the verse quoted by Ganesan too. In this verse translated
by V. M. Subramanya Iyer, Viá¹Âaṅkar is explicitly described as wearing a
loin-cloth as given below (http://tinyurl.com/nbns4gt).
You are pure in your eyes, mouth and
body, you wear a sewn loin-cloth, give up dancing along with pēy in the
cremation-ground, are
you a mad person? Our
master! Civaṉ,
who is known by the name of Āraṇiya viá¹Âaṅkar in Paiññīli surrounded by a
verdant garden which has mast wood trees, cool and green delight of the woods,
and lotus flowers growing in the moats into which water flows.
So there is no
connection between nudity and viá¹Âaṅkar as claimed by Ganesan.
On pp. 7-8 of his
paper, Ganesan says, "In East
India (Nepali, Bihari, Bengali) (3) nakar is the name of gharial [13],
directly derivable from the Tamil verb, nakar- ‘to creep, to crawl
slowly’. Compared to muggers (< makara), gharials have much
smaller, weak legs and cannot do ‘high walk’ as muggers can (Figures 7, 8).
When gharials come to the shore for sun bathing or
for laying eggs, they creep on the banks awkwardly pushing their huge bodies
forward. From this Dravidian nakar, Sanskrit gets nakra-/nÄÂkra- and
Middle Indo-Aryan nakka-. In Tamil Tevaram texts, Śiva is called nakkar/nakkaṉ
due to his nudity traceable to the phallus shape
of the gharial snout and its ancient name."
While Ganesan
easily moves from Tamil nakar to Dravidian nakar, DEDR does not
include an entry that includes Tamil nakar 'to creep, to crawl slowly'. There
seem to be no cognates of nakar in any other Dravidian language including Telugu
and Kannada. (nakar is not included in Emeneau and Burrow's "Dravidian
Borrowings from Indo-Aryan" either.) So Tamil nakar 'to creep slowly, crawl slowly' being the source of
Indo-Aryan nakra/nÄÂkra is not very convincing
to me. As a result,
tracing nakkar/nakkaṉ (referring to Śiva) "to the phallus
shape of the gharial snout and its ancient name" also seems to be
impossible.
However, there is
another possibility, as Burrow and Emeneau seem to think.
DEDR 3732 entry
is given below.
3732 Ka.
negar̤, negar̤e alligator. Tu. negaḷů id.; negarů a
sea-animal, the vehicle of Varuṇa. Te. (B.) negaá¸Âu a
polypus or marine animal supposed to entangle swimmers. / Cf. Skt. nakra-
crocodile; nÄÂkra- a kind of aquatic animal; Turner, CDIAL, no.
7038.
Based on DEDR
3732 Krishnamurti has given a reconstructed form *nek-Vḷ¸· (Dravidian Languages, 2003, p. 13). This word at
least could be transmitted to Indo-Aryan since Kannada is adjacent to
Indo-Aryan linguistic areas.
Etymology of
Tamil iá¹Âaṅkar
As best as I
could figure out Ganesan's chain of reasoning, this is how Ganesan seems to
arrive at how Tamil words viá¹Âaṅkar/iá¹Âaṅkar are interpreted as referring to
gharial.
Śiva is naked as Bhiká¹£ÄÂá¹Âana.
Gharial's snout has the shape of a
phallus.
Gharial is called nakka in Middle
Indo-Aryan
So Śiva is called nakkar because
he is naked.
Tamil viá¹Âaṅku means 'to be
erect (as lingam)' (Ganesan's own interpretation)
Śiva is called viá¹Âaṅkar.
So viá¹Âaṅkar stands for the male
organ.
Gharial's snout has the shape of a
phallus.
So viá¹Âaṅkar
in Tamil means gharial.
According to
Ganesan, viá¹Âaṅkar lost the initial v- and became iá¹Âaṅkar.
The word viá¹Âaṅkar
referring to a crocodile occurs for the first time in the VaratarÄÂca AiyaṅkÄÂr
PÄÂkavatam, a 16th century text. Earlier literary texts or lexicons do not
mention that word. But earlier texts going back to 2nd century CE mention iá¹Âaṅkar
in the sense of 'crocodile'. In several instances in the KamparÄÂmÄÂyaṇam (ca.
9th or 12th century), iá¹Âaṅkar is the word used to describe the crocodile
that attacked the elephant in the Gajendra Moká¹£a episode. (For example, see KamparÄÂṃÄÂyaṇam
5.12.79.3.)
(In fact,
contrary to Ganesan’s suggestion of viá¹Âaṅkar
being the original form, which lost v-
to result in iá¹Âaṅkar, I would argue
that the original form was indeed iá¹Âaṅkar
and the form viá¹Âaṅkar probably
resulted from a reanalysis of a manuscript line such as tuyiṉṟaṉaviá¹ÂaṅkarmÄÂttaá¹Âaṅkaá¹ÂÃ…Âṟumē in KamparÄÂmÄÂyaṇam KitkintÄ KÄÂṇá¹Âam
KÄÂrkÄÂlappaá¹Âalam published in 1862 as shown in Attachment 2, where –v- is a glide resulting from the
morphophonemics of joining tuyiṉṟaṉa
ending in -a and iá¹Âaṅkar beginning in i-.
When the words in the quoted line are separated, the word in question is taken
as iá¹Âankar as can be seen in http://tinyurl.com/kd756qp .)
Even if one
accepts the form viá¹Âaṅkar to be
earlier, in the 16th century text, the word 'viá¹Âaṅkar' is used in
connection with crocodile-elephant encounter. Since gharials are not known to
attack even human beings (http://crocodilian.com/cnhc/csp_ggan.htm), it is doubtful if they are biologically
equipped to attack big elephants. Even in the Maṇimēkalai (6th century CE), the
moat around KÄÂÂÂnci was described
as having crocodiles indicated by the term iá¹Âaṅkar, which means that iá¹Âaṅkar
cannot be identified as gharial. (As gharials do
not attack human beings, they would not have been used in moats, which were
designed to ward off attacks by hostile warriors.) So the case of viá¹Âaṅkar/iá¹Âaṅkar
representing gharial is not defensible.
Conclusions
In my opinion, Ganesan's
etymologies for Sanskrit makara and nakra/nÄÂkra are not supported
by comparative Dravidian linguistic evidence or Tamil philology. Also, his
etymological interpretation of Tamil viá¹Âaṅkar/iá¹Âaṅkar is not supported
by Tamil philology.
In January 2012 Ganesan
stated that the article had been published in "Prof. V. I. Subramonium
commemoration volume, ISDL, Tiruvananthapuram, Kerala, 2011". Later, in
February 2013 he stated that the article had been published in "Prof. V.
I. Subramonian Memorial Volume, International School of Dravidian Linguistics,
2011, (Tiruvananthapuram, Kerala)". International Journal of Dravidian
Linguistics, Volume 39, Issue 2 published in June 2010 was called
"PROFESSOR V. I. SUBRAMONIAM MEMORIAL VOLUME" as can be seen in Attachment
3. Ganesan's article was not included in that volume. Nor was it published in
the IJDL issues of 2011. There was no commemoration volume published by ISDL in
2011.
However, there is
going to be a separate Professor V. I. Subramoniam Commemoration Volume that
will be published in June 2015 during the 43rd annual conference of Dravidian
Linguistics Association to be held in Annamalai University in Tamil Nadu. (For
conference details, see http://www.ijdl.org/Html/announcement_43.pdf .) Ganesan’s article might be included in Professor V. I. Subramoniam
Commemoration Volume.
I would
appreciate any comments from the list members.
Thank you in
advance.
Regards,
S. Palaniappan