Dear Indologists,

Recently I came across this interview of late Dr. R. Nagaswamy by Prof. Bharat Gupt. At timepoint 10:16, I was surprised to hear Nagaswamy’s understanding of the word for the Tamil bard as ‘bāṇa’ instead of ‘pāṇaṉ’ (DEDR 4068) and his claim of Sanskritic derivation for that word.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfG7LsnKJKU#t=10m16s

I would like to know if any other scholar has offered this etymology.

Thank you in advance

Regards,

Palaniappan