TAMIL AND SANSKRIT

Tamil and Sanskrit are two great languages of Ifdia.: Both

of them are rich in literature. Though the literature of both
languages are mainly made up of Religious litcrature, they also
contain in abundant measure secular literature of all types. Good,
exhaustive grammar giving particulars of all aspects of the
languages by eminent men are available for both the languages.
Like all Indian languages they are phonetically well bassed, each
sound representated by a distinctive letter or symbo! or a combi-
nation of these. ப

Of these two, Sanskrit is said to be the language of the

Aryan race who came into India during 1500 B.C. Tamil is of
Dravidian orgin. Dravidians are now concentrated mostly in
South India; but they were in occupation of the whole of India in
ancient days. Most of the western scholars say that Dravidians
also came into India from the Mediteranian area. (*) But the
Tamiliavs claim that their origin was further south from a land
that disappeared in the Indian Ocean ages past. But everyone
agrees that when the Aryans came into India in 1500 B. C. the
whole country was under Dravidian occupation. The civilisation

(*) S K. Chatterjee: “Vedic age” -Race movements

No kind of man originated in the soil of India, ail her

human inhabitants having arrived originally from other lands but
developing within India some of their salient characteristics.
According to Dr. TH Hutton the following races had
come into India !. Negritos, 2. Proto-Austrolids, 3. Early
Mediteranean3, 4. Advanced Mediteraneans who become the
Dravidians in India, 5. Armenoids. 6 Aplines, 7. Nordic-Aryans
and 8. Mangoloids
Almost an identical list is given by Dr. B.S. Guha, Director
of the Anthropological survey of India.
 2

of Mohan je Daro and Harappa which is dated ahout 3C00 B. C.

is said to be of proto Dravidian origin. Though claims are Jaid
that the language of these cities was old Tamil, there is very little
evidence to prove such claims. It seems safer to say that the
language of these cities was proto Dravidian. All the members of
the present day Dravidian group of languages have come out of
this ancient Proto D;avidian.

A great number of Western Scholars and researchers have

gone deeply into the problem of the origin of the language and
of the movement of the Aryan people who are said to have
originated Sanskrit. Such wide spread interest in the language
was caused by the discovery by European scholars, who with the
advent of the British rule had come into India, that Sanskrit
contained lots of words that seemed to have the same meaning
and having a phonetic resemblance to words in several European
languages. (*) Such similarity could not have been accidental.
All efforts were made to unravel this mystery and all branches of
arts, science, history. prehistory, geology etc went into the problem.
The following results have come out of their joint efforts

(*) 7. Burrow: “The Sanskrit Language”

The discovery of the Sanskrit language by fGuropean
scholars at the end of the 18ம்‌ century was the starting point
from which developed the study of the comparative philology -of
the Indo-European languages and eventually the whole science
of Modern linguistics.
B K. Gosh : (Aryan Problem) lt was the Florentine merchant
Fijlipo Sassetti who after five years of stay in Goa (1582=1588)
declared for the first time that thera existed a definite relation
between Sanskrit and some of the principal languages of Europe.
But that this relation was due to the origin from a common source
was suggested only in 1786 by Sir Willam Jones in his famous
address to the Royal Asiatic society of Bengal.
 3

About 2500 B. C. a great race of people called Aryans lived

in Central Europe and Central Asia. The language they spoke
was rich in vocabulary. Living in a very wide area, whatever
‘language they spoke got itself split up into a number of distinct
-dialects. About 2000 B. C. these Aryans began to move out of
their homeland in large groups in various directions travelling long
distances. Most of the groups went west and north and got settled
in various parts of Europe. One large group moving Southeast
went into Iran and got setteld there for 500 years. About B. C.
150) a big part of this grou> moved east and came into
India This movement of the Aryans is conficmed by the fact
that throughout this area lots of word roots, modified to some
extent in different places, are found denoting the same subject or
action. This could be possible only by the conclusion described
above. The vocabulary of the Aryans got itself mingled with all
the local languages but retaining its original singnificance These
word roots are found in plenty in Sanskrit, Prakritand in all the
present day north Indian languages. 1: was the discovery of these
root words in Sanskrit by the European scholars that lead to the
above research. To denote the wholesale assimilation of these
Aryan words in the several languages of Europe and India. a
common term was coined as “Indo European group of languages”
giving precendence to “Indo” as this discovery was made in India
This new term denotes only this much - al} languages forming part
of.this group have lots of Aryan words absorbed in them and are
chiefly found in India and Europe Jt does not denote any other
affinity or similarity between the member languages though such
similarity might exist between a f.w of the member languages
ased on other aspects.

“It was a comparatively easy job to have found out that a

single language which had once flourished in a single place had
spread out and got its vocabulary embedded into languages found
in widely seperated places in Eurasia But a language is not made
up of its vocabulary alone The more important contrrbuting
factor. is its grammar. What had become of the original Aryan
 4

grammar? No one has given a definite answer to this important

question. One has to only guess that the Aryan grammar was
comparatively weak and so got itself lost. Probably this is the
reason why Mr, Burrow whenever he mentions about the language
of the Aryans,who came into India in B.C. 1500, refers to it always
as Aryan speech.

When the nomadic Aryans with their ‘Speech’ entered

Indian soil the land was under Dravidian occupation. What was
the status of their language? The proto Dravidians of Harappa
and Mohanje Dero had a high civilisation even in 3L00B C. A
high civilisation naturally means a high level of language also
Even if their language was not highly developedin 8. C. 3000
they had another 1500 years before them to develop it into a high
order before the Aryans c: me in.

Nobody has described the events that took place after the
Aryans came in. How did the two communities react to each
othet’s presence? Originally it was claimed that there was war
between the two communities and the Aryans won and drove the
Dravidians southwards But later this theory was recognised to be
wrong (*) and it was accepted that both communities lived in
unity.

(*) S.K. Chatterjee : When the hypothesis of an Aryan inva-

sion and occupation of India was first proposed some four
generations ago it was believed that the white skinned, blue eyed
and golden haired Aryans came into the land of the black skinned
Non Aryan and made an easy conquest of them and imposed upon
an inferior race their superior religion. culture and Janguage. .
It was believed that all the better elements in Hindu religion
and culture-its deeper philosophy its finer literature, every thing
which was good and noble in it, came from the Aryans and every-
thing that was dark, lowly and superstitious represented the non-
{continued in next page)
 The land was fertile and there was room enough for the
guests. Probably the increase in population was considered as
desirable since it could contribute to greater production and
better living. ,

Though we have arrived at a satisfactory answer to the

question ‘‘What had happened to the Aryans after they entered
India’’ there still remains the question” ‘What happended to the
Aryan speech”. Did they continue with their original speech or
dialect or did it get itself absorbed into the Dravidan language as
happened in all the European countries where their cousins had
gone in? Here in Indian soil the Aryan speech did not loose
itself but got itself transformed into a new language ‘Prakrit’ retain-
ing most of its vocabluary and adopting the grammer of the
Dravidians.

To understand how such a fusion of two languages could

take place, one should first understand how close they lived together,
in what esteem they held each other and in what all ways they
modified themselves to accomodate the others views and prejudices.
This is very vividly seen in the development of the Hindu religion.

The Aryans when they entered India had brought with them
their speech, their Gods, their forms of worship and their social
culture. All these had underwent extensive changes in the Indian
soil, taking into them all that was good and noble in the Dravidian

(Continued)
aryan view. This view is now gradually being abandoned. It is
now generally admitted that ihe Dravidians contributed a great
many elements of paramounts importance in the evolution of Hindu
culture. In certain matters the Dravidian and Austric contributions
are far deeper and extensive than that of the Aryans. The praryans
of Harappa and Mohanje Daro were certainly in possesion ofa
higher material culture than what the seminomadic Aryans could
show.
 6

race and passing on to the Dravidian race all that was good and
noble in them. How can we identify the Aryan contribution and
the Dravidian contribution from the fused homogenous result.
Dr. M. Varaderajan has mentioned an infalliable test in his book
“History of Tamil - Tamil Varalaru‘‘. Since the same Aryan
people had gone out into the various countries in the west and to
Jran taking with them all that the Aryans had bought into India,
it should be easy enough to search all these countries for common
factors in all branches of human activity. If, as we had found
common root words in the languages of these countries,
we can find other common factors in these countries, all such
common factors should be held as of Aryan orgin. This seems to
be an ideal test.

In their earliest composition “Rig Veda” the Gods mentio-

ned in it are Indra, Agni, Varuna, Nisatya, Mitra and others. We
find all these Gods in Iran(*) in the Zorastrian religion. We find
Indira in various modifications in Greek literature. Similarly 6

(*) B.K. Gosh: Vedic Literature

The ceremony of Upanayana is practically the same in the
Vedas and in Avesta and in both the conventional number of Gods
is the same thirty three.
T. Burrow- Avesta is the name given to the ancient
collection of sacred writings preserved by the adherants of the
Zorastrian religion.
T. Burrow: A treaty was concluded between the Hittite king
Sipililiuma and the Mittani king Matiuaza in 1350B.C. Among
the divinities sworn by in this document there occurs four well
‘known Vedic divine names - Indira, Mitra, Misatya and Varuna.

S. K. Chatterjee: The acceptance of prearyan (Dravidian) ritual

meant also the acceptance of the conception of the divinity and of
the mythological figures of the Gods and Goddesses which were
(continued in next page)
 A

ceremony of Upanayana is or was prevalent in Iran. In the field

of language the practice of modifying adjectives to denote gender
and the practice of dividing inanimate objects also into masculine
and faminine genders are found in the Romance languages of
Europe. So all these factors found in Sanskrit literature
could well be attributed to Aryan origin as per the above theory.
If we find other similarities between Sanskrit language and
Dravidian languages we can apply the same theory and find out
whether the origin was Aryan or Dravidian.
Within a period of 500 years from the time the Rig Vedic
Samhitas were composed to the time the Upanishads were written,
the concept of God had underwent a complete change. The idea
of creation, protection and destruction and the consequent Trinity
concept had taken concrete shape and the old Gods have been
relegated a very small place in religion. Symbolising God in the
shape of idols and offering workship to these idols in the shape
of Puja instead of the original ‘Homa’ also has become the
accepted idea. How did all these changes come about. A number
of authors seem to fee] that these are Dravidian contributions.

Such drastic changes in ideas and concepts can come about

only if the communities contributing to these changes lived in
perfect hormony and respect. It is this same respect for the other
community in religious matters that contributed to the fusion of
their languages also.

(Continued)
current among them (Dravidians) In mediaeval and modern
Hinduism certain divinities stand paramount like Siva and Uma,
Vishnu and Sri. The popular Gods of the Vedic Aryans gradually
recede into the background anda group of more puissant and
more personal Gods, more profound and cosmic more philosophi-
cal in their conception become established. As it has been said
before Siva and Uma are in all likelihood fundamentally of
Dravidian origin.
 8

But somehow there seems to be a lot of prejudice against

the idea that Sanskrit is the product of fusion between the Aryan
Speech and the Dravidian grammar. Claims were made that all
the dravidian Janguages were born out of Sanskrit which was the
language of the Aryans But we have already shown that a survey
of all the languages of Europe where Aryans had gone into in
large numbers only reveal similarity in word roots and very little
of similarity in grammar, This means that the grammar in
Sanskrit was not of Aryan origin. The proponants for Sanskrit
language make the next claim that Sanskrit was developed in India
by the Aryans themselves and no help was taken from Dravidian
languages. Bishop Caldwel has taken great pains to show that
Dravidian languages are vastly different from Sanskrit and has
shown 16 points which he claims shows their dissimilarity.

Fortunately Bishop Caldwel himself has put forward a very

sound theory to differentiate or identify languages. He says “Of
all evidences of identity or diversity between languages the most
conclusive are those that are furnished by a comparision of their
grammatical structure’. We can look into this problem keeping
this theory as a test paper. Since most of our readers may not be
in a position to know a number of Dravidian languages and since
Tamil has more claims as being of greater approximity, to the
original Dravidian language we can compare Sanskrit with Tamil
only for this purpose. Since Bishop Caldwel has also taken lots of
pain to show the similarity of Sanskrit to the languages of Indo
European groups we can compare these language also with
Sanskrit on the bais of their grammar, taking again for convenience
the Engilish language known to most of us.

Grammar books of all languages start with the recounting

of their alphabets. Alphabets of all languages are divided into
two groups — 1. Vowels and Consonants.
 9

I Comparision of Alphabets
1. VOWELS:

Tamil: There are 12 vowels consisting of five short vowels.

Each of these has a corresponding long vowel. In addition there
are two dipthongs. This makes a total of 12 vowels as below.
௮ இ ௨ எ g-B gar
ஆ 7 தண்‌ நர ஓ
These 12 vowels are arranged in a particular way. There
does not seem to be any natural sequence in this order as claimed
for the consonants. ௧, #,L, 3, andu

Each of these vowels has only one sound.

Sanskrit: Sanskrit also contains all these vowels except the two

shorts 6r and @. They have three additional letters ru, roo, lru
making a total of 18. The order of writing the common 10 is
exactly identical with the Tamil way of writing which itself was
very arbitrary and not of any natural sequence. Also as in Tamil
each letter represents only one sound.

English: There 5 vowels - a, e, i, oand u.

are Though these
vowels constitute most of the short vowels of Tamil or Sanskrit,
they do not have any long ones which are formed by putting either
two short vowels together or other means. They do not follow
the arrangement in Sanskrit. Each letter has 3 or 4 different
sounds and a single sound is represented by more than one letter.

2. CONSONANTS:

Tamil — There are 18 consonants divided into 3 groups of

6 jetters each as 1 Hard group 2. Soft group and 3. Middle group.
The 6 hard group letters are each linked to one of the six soft
group letters as below &, mi - &, @ -L., wr — 5, G-U, W- M, oF
The hard proup letters have besides their original sound. two! more
sounds The first of these two groupsis a soft group and is
 10

represented by Ga, Ja, Da, Dha, Ba and Tda and the second group
as Ha, Sa, Dda, Dhdha, Bha and Ra. These extra sounds are not
provided with extra letters as in Tamil language these sounds are
pronounced only in definite locations well defined by suitable laws.
So use of the same letter to denote 3 sounds each does not cause
confusion once the rules are understood. The other soft group
and middle group letters have only one sound each.
The letters are arranged in a definite pattern following the
natural location of the parts of mouth and tongue producing these
sounds.
Sanskrit : The consonats are divided almost in a similar way as
Hard, Soft, Nasels and semivowels. They are arranged in the
same pattern and order asin Tamil, linking one each hard, soft
and nassal. The soft sounds also have separate letters to represent
them. Instead of one hard and two soft for each of the hard
consonants they have 2 hard and 2 soft. A comparative chart is
given below. No letter has more than one sound.
Tamil
1 2 3 4
Ka Ga Ha Gna 45/7
Cha Ja Sa Ngna ©
Tda Da [க்க Nna எசா
Tha Dha Dhdha Na 15
Pa Ba Bha Ma ww
Ta Tda Ra Na சா
Sanskrit
1 la 2 28 3 ர 4
Ka Kka Ga (23 Gna Ha
Cha Chha Ja Jja Ngna Sha
Tda Ttda Da Dda Nna = Sha
Tha Ththa Dha Dhdha Na Sa
Pa Ppa Ba Bba Ma
Middle Group :
Ya Ra La Va er Ya Ra La Va @
 11.

English: The 21 consonants in English have sounds not found in

Sanskrit and lack a number of sounds found in Sanskrit. They
are not arranged in any order as in Sanskrit and Tamil. Most of
the letters have more than one sound. Some sound is also
represented by two or three letters. Consonant combinations are
used to produce new sounds.

li Vowel, Consonant combinations:

In all languages a vowel can combine with any Consonant
and give the consonant the ability to come out as a sound.
Without the help of a vowel no consonant could be pronounced,
When we say B, d, 1, r we have added a vowel either before or
after as Bi, di, el, or. When they combine with other vowels these
‘helper’ vowels are dropped and not pronounced ~ eg. When we
write Ba we do not pronounce it as Bia but simply as ‘ba’ dropping
the ‘helper? vowel ‘i’. These combinations could be called
Syllables.

Tamil : To represent each of these combination of each vowel

with each consonant, separate lettera are used based on the
consonant modified by a symbol denoting each vowel. These
symbols are written either before or after the consonant or
superimposed on it.

Sanskrit : The same practice as in Tamil is followed creating

separate letters for each combination. The vowels are represented
by symbols as in Tamil and are attached to the consonant either
before or after or superimposed.
English: The combining consonant and vowel are given
separately.

IIL Words and Word Groups :

Either one, two, three or more syllables are used to form
a word which denotes either an object or some work or some
characteristic of the object or the work. Words are classified as
nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.
 12
1. NOUNS: In all languages nouns are modified inte various
forms to show whether they do things or othersdo it to them,
whether we go to a place or return from a place etc. These
modifications are m ide in several ways in various languages.

Tamil: The required modifications are made by attaching some

suffix to the noun. The suffix may bea single letter or two or
three letters or even a word. But the whole is combined into a
single word. A total of 20 purposes is recognised in Tamil.
But separate suffixes are not formed for each purpose.
Instead these 20 purposes are grouped into 8 groups each
group being provided with one, two or several suffixes. The group-
ing of the modifications is not based on any specific characteristic.
Instead the grouping can be said to be quite arbitrary.

Sanskrit: Here there are 18 purpose and the purposes are in

most cases the same asin Tamil. The purposes are grouped as in
Tamil into 8 groups. In the same arbitrary manner the 18 modifi-
cations are grouped into them. The same ungroupable modifications
are grouped into the same groups in both languages as shown
below:

Group Tamil Sanskrit

1. Subject Subject
2. Object Object, Destination
3. Doer, {nstrumentJointaction Doer, Instrument, Jointaction
4 Gift, enimity, Equality, Gift, Anger, Intolerance,
suitability, Transformation, ideal, Transformation, Behalf
Behalf of, relation. of
5. Separation, Arrival, Resemb- Separation, Arrival, Limit.
lence, limit, Cause.
Belonging Belonging
Place Place
Address Address
 13

2. VERBS:

Tamil: Affixes are added to verb roots to denote number,

gender, tense and person. The affixes for number and gender are
added at the very end and are called suffixes. The affixes for
tense and person are placed between these suffixes and the word
root. So they are termed mid positions.

Sanskrit: There is no suffix to denote gender. But different

suffixes are used to denote number, tease and person.

English: Past tense is indicated by a suffix. Future tense by a

separate word placed ahead of the verb. The word root by itself
denotes present tense. Otherwise verbs do not denote either
number, gender or person.

3. WORD GROUPS:

Tamil & Sanskrit: When two words are grouped together

they either merge together, the last vowel from the first word and
the first vowel from the second word forming a long vowel or a
diphthong. Sometimes an additional consonant of the same group
as the first consonant of the second word is introduced.

English: In all similar groupings the words stand separate.

4. ADJECTIVES:
Tamil: The same adjective in the same state is used to govern
all genders & numbers and all states of the nouns.

Sanskrit: The adjective endings are modified to denote gender

and number and the appropriate suffixes of the governed nouns,
which denotes their state, are added to the adjectives also.

English: The adjectives remain without any change as in Tamil.

But in members of the Romance language group they are suitably
modified according to the gender.
 14,
IV Sentence Construction :

1. Simple sentences :

Tamil: The subject is placed first, the object in the middle and
the verb last. Adjectives are placed before the nouns they qualify.
Adverbs are placed before the verbs governing them.

Sanskrit: There are no fixed rules. Subject, verb and object

can be placed in any order. But normally they follow the order
found in Tamil. Adjectives are placed before the nouns and
adverbs before the verbs.

English: The subject is followed by the verb and the object is

placed last. Adjectives are placed before the nouns. But adverbs
are placed after the verbs.

2. Compound sentences and small verses: Some sentences and

simple verses in Sanskrit are given below. Word by word
translations are given in Tamil and English to enable a comparison
to be drawn by the reader himself. ” the 8.
1) S. Rama Lanka Gathva Sarvan Rakshasan
ராமன்‌ லங்கை சென்று எல்லா ராக்ஷசர்களையும்‌
mos

Raman Lanka Went (and) all Rakshses

Ravananan Cha Jagatha
Magy

சாவணனையும்‌ கொன்றான்‌.
Ravana and killed.

2) Chuklaambaradharam Vishnum Chachi varnam

8

வெள்ளை ஆடை எங்தம்‌ சந்திர

உடுத்தியவனை நிறைந்தவனை நிறத்தவனை
Waite dressed al! pervasive moon coloured
8

Sathur Bhujam Prasanna vadhanam

நான்கு கையனை
மூ

சிரித்த முகத்தவனை
four armed Smile faced
 15

S. dhiyaeth sarva . Vigna upashanthaye.

7. வணங்குகிறேன்‌ எல்லா கஷ்டங்களையும்‌ நீக்குவதற்காக
E. do homage all troubles to remove

3) S. Maatha samastha jagathaam Mathukaitabarer

7. தாயே சகல உலகங்களுக்தம்‌ மது கைடபரை
அழித்தவனுடைய
E. Mother all world Madhu Kaitapa destroyer’s
5. veksho viharini
1, மார்பில்‌ இருப்பவளே
Eon chest seated lady

4) S. manohara dhivya moorthe shri. swamini

1. மனம்‌ கவரும்‌ அழகி வடிவுள்ளவளே திருவே தேவியே
E. mind stealing beautiful appearaace lady Godess
S.. chrithajana
T. அ௮ண்டின ஜனங்களுடைய .
E. Surrendered peoples
5) 5. priyadhaana cheele shri venketesha
T. விருப்பங்களை பண்பு திருவேங்கட
கொடுக்கும்‌ உள்ளவளே இறைவனுடைய
E. desires granting good habitee Thiruvenkata Lord’s
S. dhayithe thava suprabatham
1, மனைவியே உனக்கு நல்ல காலை
13. spouse to you Good Morning

Using Bishop Caldwz2l’s theory a broad study of the

grammar of these languages beginning with the
the alphabets and
sounds represented ty them, combination of alphabets to produce
syllables, formation of words and word groups and arrangement
of words to form sentences, reveal very little affinity beiwecn
Sanskrit and the European languages. Tamil and Sanskrit on
the basis of their grammar look very much like twins.

Besides Grammar there are other fields also served by

Janguages and we can look into them for similarities, In the field
of art, the branch of music can be used as a good touch stone
 16

for languages. Music requires numerous subtle modifications

of the words with which any poetry is built. Unless comparable
languages have between them the same kind of word and _ sentence
formation it will not be possible to sing any song of one language
in the musical notes of another language without producing a
jarring effect. All or most of the Sanskrit slokas could be sung in
the same tunes and ragas, used for Tamil songs. The Ragas
of Samaveda are also said to have an affinity to present day
Carnatic ragas.

When we see so much affinity between Sanskrit and the

_ Dravidian languages as represented by Tamil we should try to find
how this similarity came about. We have already seen that when
the Aryans came into India in 1500 B C. they had only a speech
without much of a grammar. The Aryans lived in amity with
the Dravidians and borrowed from them most of the grammar
and using their own words they formed a language which they
called ‘Prakrit’ or originally made.

Like all people living an easy life in a land of plenty, irriga-

ted by parenial rivers, the Dravidians had developed a high
standard of life and a high standard in art, culture and religon.
But they were also easy going and indolent and had not made any
serious attempt to record their culture and civilisation. The Aryans
by the very nature of their nomadic habit extending a thousand
years and more had more initiative and enterprise and _ started
recording their religion and religious rites. When they wanted
to create literature, the thought must have occured to them as to
how far such literature will survive through the succeeding genera-
tions. They knew by experience that common people had a way
of their own and distorted their languages in slow stages and no
language could survive such onslaught by common folk for more
than a few hundred years. So the idea occured to them that they
should create a seperate language which could purposely be made
difficult and could be learnt only by continuous application, If
such a language could be created and their literature built on it,
the literature will be available only to the few learned men who
 17

will take care not to destroyit The common folk will always get
the benefit of the literature by listerning to dicourses by the learned
men. (Such practice of Jearning the stories of the epics by the
common people from discourses held by pandits in street corners
during all important days are even now widely prevalent) They
had cre..ted a new language only two or three hundred years ago
and they felt confident that they could create a second language
also. This was the starting point for the ceation of Sanskrit the
new language in which they could enshrine all that they considered
as holy and important

When the Dravidians, who must have extended some help

in this as they did for the creation of Prakrit, found that the
Aryans were on a good effuit enshring all their ideas for posterity
ina language that will not esily get decayed, they become
enthusiastic and joined more fully in developing a language that
will not only be proof against decay by virtue of being difficult
but also be artistic and beautiful.

Proof that the Dravidians had gradually taken over the

task of getting the new language more and more perfect is seen in
the changes that can be seen between the language of the Samhitas
(which form the early portion of the Rig vera) and the Janguage of
of the Upanishads (which form the later portions of the vedas
created at least 300 years after the Rig Vedia Samhitas) It is also
seen in the transformation that had taken place in the substance
of these earlier and later compositions. The Aryan Gods have all
been relagated to minor positions and the Dravidian deities have
attained supremacy. The dry recital of ritual hymns and eloborate
details of sacrificial techniques have been gradually replaced by
speculative spirit which reaches monumental heights in many
places witnessing the hights to which human spirit can soar. Such
a transformation of the vedic literature both in language and spirit
was not possible without the closest cooperation of the Dravidians,
who had already reached such heights of cultural level even before
the Aryans had come in and who had earlier kept quiet bound by
their innate easy life.
 16

The goal of creating a perfect language set for themselves

by the Aryans and Dravidians was not an easy oneand it took them:
four or five hundred years till the time of the great grammarian
Panini who in 4th centuary B C. got the whole language codified
and regulated and fixed in every detail. All that was good in both
languages were put together. Thousands of Dravidian words were
also taken in. The result was perfect work and they termed it so
as “sanskrit” or “perfectly done’. No greater tribute can be paid
to the greatness of this language and to the efforts of the people
who had created it than was paid by Sri William Jones in 1786 in
his presidential address to the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal.

“Sanskrit, whatever may be its antiquity, is of wonder-

ful structure, more perfect than the Greek, more copious
than the Latin and yet more exquistely refined than either’.

As was originally supposed that any Janguage permitted for.

the use of the common man will get changed and destroyed, Pra-
krit the earlier language of the common man got itself split into
so many dialects and lost. Most of the language of present day
north India have their origin in this. Aryans also got themselves lost
and absorbed in the local population and there is no trace of any.
pure Aryan society anywhere in India. But Sanskrit had kept
itself intact and stands exactly at the same level where Panini had
placed it. Enormous quantity of literature has been added by
great authors; but there was no need to enlarge or change the
language and it stands there majestically.

Tamil had undergone a lot of changes during the last 2500

years. Itis difficult for a present day student to understand
presangam and sangam litterature. Malayalam is said to have been
split out of Tamil. But inspite of all these adverse ’ conditions
Tamil had reached a golden age between 600 to 1000 A. D. Later
dazzled by the glory of Sanskrit, Tamil also began borrowing
heavily from Sanskrit. Words which bad been originally given to
 19

Sanskrit from Tamil and other Dravidian languages have come

back with a special flavour.

; In modern times we have a reaction to this excessive

borrowing from Sanskrit and its slavish reliance on Sanskrit for
new words to represent new thoughts. Such reliance is very unde-
sirable for an indépendent growth. But this reaction is reaching a
disastrous level. In an effort to get a pure Tamil language we are
throwing out wholesale words which have got themselves embedded
as an inseparable part of Tamil. And there is no need to discord
them. Unlike words of Arabic and European origin these Sanskrit
words get themselves disolved without remaining Separate as lumps.
They will easily merge into any musical composition made in
Tamil which cannot be claimed for words of any other language.
The greatest reason why they should not be discarded wholesale is
because Sanskrit also is our language built by our own scholars
for a special purpose.

; The great sage Vyasa is the great grandson of Vasishta,

grandson ‘of Shakti, son of Parasharar and father of Shuka.
‘All of them are supposed to be rishis of great renown...
Where do all these rishis come from. Surely they sre not Aryan.
There isno comparison between these intellectual giants who
searched the very depths of their souls and minds to reach the
God head which was nothing else but truth and reality, and the
Aryans who concentrated their religions practices to performence
of rites, sacrifices and yagas. It is these great souls Which gave
the country its Hindu religion, thought and culture.

Leaving Vedic age and coming to historical period we find

3 great men had written exhaustive commentries on the vedas.
They ate Sankara, Ramanuja and Madhava. All of them are.
 20

Dravidians and two of them Tamilians Though originally the

Aryans took part in creating the Sanskrit language the greater part
of the work was done by the Dravidians It is the Dravidians
who take greater care in preserving the language Though it
will be the duty of we Tamilians to develop our own domestic
language to still greater heights, we need not fez! that Stnskrit
will be a hindrance in this purpose. We certainly need not treat
it as an untouchable. It is of our blood and it shall be our duty
to safeguard It also.

In any attempt to reconstruct events that took place 3090

years back, we can never hope to build a complete and cohesive
picture The arere bound to b: many gaps all around No single
individual can hope to bring out even a presentable picture all by
himself within a short span of a life time. I have gathered several
stray pieces into a skeleton fourm. I earnestly request all scholars
to take a greater interest in this subject and provide the missing’
links.

_S. Natarajan, 89, New Colony, Tuticorin-628003.

வரவு அவக கவ அவ்‌ வம குயுகுவ கவு ஆல கம

DEVI PRESS, TUTICORIN: