Dravidian peoples
The terms Dravidians and Dravidian Race are sometimes given to the peoples of southern and central India and Sri Lanka who speak Dravidian languages, the best known of which are Telugu (తెలుగు), Tamil (தமிழ்), Kannada (ಕನ್ನಡ), Malayalam (മലയാളം) and Tulu (ತುಳು). Notably one Dravidian language, Brahui, is spoken in Pakistan, perhaps hinting at the language family's wider distribution prior to the spread of the Indo-Aryan languages.
Concept of the Dravidian Race
The identification of the Dravidian people as a separate race arose from the realization by 19th-century Western scholars that there existed a group of languages spoken by people in the south of India, which were completely unrelated to the Indo-Aryan languages prevalent in the north of the country. Because of this, it was supposed that the generally darker-skinned Dravidian speakers constituted a genetically distinct race. This notion corresponded to European belief of the time, according to which darker-skinned peoples were more "primitive" than the light-skinned whites. Accordingly, Dravidians were envisaged as primitive early inhabitants of India who had been partially displaced and subordinated by Aryans. The term Dravidian is taken from the Sanskrit "drāvida", meaning "Southern". It was adopted following the publication of Robert Caldwell's Comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages (1856); a publication which established the language grouping as one of the major language groups of the world.
Classical anthropology viewed them as a distinct race, one of about the 40 human races in their system ("Weddid race"). Indeed, southern Indians differ from northern Indians in many respects, one of which is often darker skin. Most modern historians, however, reject the conception of a distinct Dravidian race, asserting that the high degree of admixture between distinct genetic populations during prehistory is far more significant than the somewhat superficial overlay of language distribution, as language frequently spreads between groups of genetically disparate people as cultures meet and clash. Some believe that the darker skins of the Dravidian-speaking people would be explained by their adaptation to the hotter and sunnier climate of South India.
Genetic studies
Recent studies of the distribution of alleles on the Y chromosome[1][2], microsatellite DNA[3], and mitochondrial DNA[4] in India have cast overwhelmingly strong doubt upon any biological Dravidian "race" as distinct from non-Dravidians in the Indian subcontinant. This doubtfulness applies to both paternal and maternal descent.
Since skin color is subject to strong selective pressure, similar skin colors can result from convergent adaptation rather than from genetic relatedness. Sub-Saharan Africans, tribal populations from southern India, and Indigenous Australians have similar skin pigmentation, but genetically they are no more similar than are other widely separated groups.[1] Furthermore, in some parts of the world in which people from different regions have mixed extensively, the connection between skin color and ancestry has been substantially weakened (Parra et al. 2004). In Brazil, for example, skin color is not closely associated with the percentage of recent African ancestors a person has, as estimated from an analysis of genetic variants differing in frequency among continent groups (Parra et al. 2003).
Tamil politics
The concept of a Dravidian race has affected thinking in India about racial and regional differences. It has informed aspects of Tamil nationalism, which has at times appropriated the claim that Dravidians are the earliest inhabitants of India in order to argue that other populations were oppressive interlopers from which Dravidians should liberate themselves. The discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization in the 1920s, which is sometimes attributed to displaced or assimilated Dravidians of the north, further fuelled such Dravidianist ideas since it implied that the Indo-Aryans were "uncivilised barbarians" rather than a "superior race".
Modern views
It has been suggested that the proto-Dravidians of the Indian subcontinent were a Caucasoid people who arrived from the Middle East, and may have been related to the Elamites, whose language some propose be categorized along with the Dravidian languages as part of a larger Elamo-Dravidian language family. The Dravidians were preceded in the subcontinent by an Australoid-type people, and followed by Indo-European-speaking migrants sometime later. The original inhabitants may be identified with the speakers of the Munda languages, which are unrelated to either Indo-Aryan or Dravidian languages. This view is put forward in geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza's book The History and Geography of Human Genes.
However, the term Caucasoid is controversial, and linguists dispute the existence of an Elamo-Dravidian language family.
Story of origin
According to Tamil lore, the Dravidians originally came from a submerged island Kumari Kandam in the south of India. Kumari Kandam has also been linked to Lemuria.
According to the Puranas, the Dravidians are descendants of the Vedic Turvasha people. According to the Matsya Purana, Manu was a king of Dravida. In Tamil lore, the creation of the Tamil language is credited to the Rig Vedic sage Rishi Agastya, a view that secular linguists would interpret as a story designed to link Dravidians to Vedic Indo-Aryan culture [citation needed].
Dravidian languages and Dravidian peoples
The Dravidian languages are grouped into Northern, Central, South-Central, and Southern categories. The Northern consists of Malto and Kurukh, spoken in northeast India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, as well as Brahui which is primarily spoken in southwestern Pakistan. South-Central consists mainly of Telugu. The southern branch has the most languages, with Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam. Among these all languages sounds sweet, except Tamil which is really cocophony.
Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada are highly influenced by Sanskrit, both in vocabulary and in grammar. This may be attributable to the dominance of Brahmins in the past, and also to the adaptation of Sanskrit as the principal language of Buddhism, Jainism and Saivism in those societies.
Some believe that Dravidian-speaking peoples were spread throughout the Indian subcontinent before the Aryans settled there. In this view the early Indus Valley civilization (Harappa and Mohenjo Daro) is often identifed as having been Dravidian. A subsequent theory, which is controversial now, suggests that its peoples were then forced southwards by the invasion of the Aryans, which caused the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization. However it is now considered more likely that the collapse was caused by environmental change (drought). It was then this collapse that encouraged the migration of the nomadic Indo-Aryans into the area; a situation comparable with the decline of the Roman Empire and the incursions of North European tribes that followed during the Migrations Period. It is therefore more likely that the Dravidian speakers of South India were already living in the region, and were merely the only group unaffected by the initial Indo-Aryan migration.
Some scholars like J. Bloch and M. Witzel believe that the Dravidians intruded upon an Indo-Aryan speaking area after the oldest parts of the Rig Veda were already composed (see Bryant 2001: chapter 5). This theory might be supported if a higher antiquity of the Indo-Aryan languages could be established. However, since this theory is mainly a linguistic hypothesis, the Dravidian influence on Aryan languages must not necessarly be equated to a movement of populations. A small number of individuals, rather than populations, could have influenced the Sanskrit language. The influence of Sanskrit itself on the Dravidian languages was the result of individual Sanksrit speakers (and not of whole populations) migrating to South India.
Into the 21st century, Indians, with possible justification, continue to accuse the British Raj of exaggerating differences between northern and southern Indians beyond linguistic differences to help sustain their control of India. The British Raj ended in 1947, yet all discussion of Aryan or Dravidian "races" remains highly controversial in India.
Dravidian and Vedic culture
The South Indian Dravidians have been in some respects the best preservers of ancient Vedic culture and traditions, especially when the north of India was dominated by Buddhism and later was affected by Islam. Some modern theories of the origins of both Hinduism and Buddhism focus on the resultant mixture of the "Aryan" and "Dravidian" cultures.
Tamil literature and Tamil epics and classics have many references to Vedic gods and culture. The Tolkaappiyam mentions non-Vedic, early-Vedic (Indra, Varuna) and Puranic (Vishnu) gods. The Paripadal (8; 3; 9 etc.), one of the "Eight Anthologies" of poetry (or ettuttokai), has homages to Vishnu, Lakshmi, Brahma, the twelve Adityas, the Ashwins, the Rudras, the Saptarishis, Indra, the Devas etc. The Kural, written by Tiruvalluvar, mentions gods like Indra (25) and Lakshmi (e.g. 167).
The Tamil epic Shilappadikaram, begins with invocations to Chandra, Surya, and Indra, and has homages to Agni, Varuna, Shiva, Subrahmanya, Vishnu-Krishna, Uma, etc. The epic states that “Vedic sacrifices [are] being faultlessly performed” and has many references to Vedic culture and Vedic texts. In the Buddhist work Manimekhalai, the submersion of the city Puhar in Kumari Kandam is attributed to the neglect of the worship to Indra.
The Eastern Ethiopians
Herodotus, Homer and other Greek authors called the Dravidians the Eastern Ethiopians. Greek writers sometimes identified the "Western Aethiopians" of East Africa with the "Eastern Aethiopians" of South India. Also the African and Indian geography were sometimes compared or identified with each other: Arrian (vi. i.) mentions that the Indus River was thought by some ancient Greeks to be the source of the Nile. It is usually assumed that by 'Aethiopian' Herodotus simply means 'black person', so that the term really only functions to characterise southern Indians as Eastern black people.
Herodotus wrote about the Dravidians: They differed in nothing from the other Ethiopians, save in their language, and the character of their hair. For the Eastern Ethiopians have straight hair, while they of Libya are more woolly-haired than any other people in the world. (Herodotus: from The History of the Persian Wars, VII.70., c.430 BCE)
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, however, took up this connection between Dravidians and Ethiopians in order to claim a direct racial and cultural link between the two peoples. She was attempting to show that Indian culture influenced Ancient Egypt via Ethiopia. She described many parallels between Egypt and India in her works. After the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilisation Gottfried de Purucker remarked (referring to Secret Doctrine, vol.2, p.417): A highly advanced urban civilization of Mohenjo Daro has been discovered on the Indus "between Attock and Sind," exactly the location mentioned in The Secret Doctrine as the abode of the Aethiopians.(Encyclopedic Theosophical Glossary).
However, modern genetic studies show any connection between Dravidian and African can only be attributed to common journey of Homo Sapiens. Even the darkest Dravidian with curly hair shared a common ancestor with Africans around 50,000 to 70,000 years ago just like his light skinned, straight haired compatriot. The male lineages, defined by Y-chromosome Haplogroups are exclusive between Indian and African populations[1].
Dravidian tradition and Hinduism
Interestingly, the original Indo-Aryan gods like Indra, Agni, Vayu etc. are not the principal gods of present day Hindus. Those Indo-Aryan gods have equivalents in other Indo-European gods worshipped by other Indo-European speaking peoples. Those gods occupied the highest position until the advent of Christianity in those societies, with little discernable trace remaining of the Pre-Indo-European deities and traditions. However in India the traditions of native groups such as the Dravidians seem to have mingled more fluently with those of the migrants. One view is that this unique mingling is what resulted in modern Hinduism.
One scenario would place the migration of the Indo-Aryans in a specifically Indian context requiring the merging of Dravidian priestly classes with Indo-Aryan priestly classes, creating a proto-caste system somewhere in the North-West of the Indian subcontinent.
Prominent Dravidian groups
- Brahuis : Brahuis belong to North-Dravidian linguistic family. They are found in Balochistan province of Pakistan. Brahuis are exclusively Muslims.
- Kannadigas : These people belong to South-Dravidian language family. Mostly found in Karnataka. Majority of them belong to Hinduism. There are Muslims, and small populations of Christians and Jains.
- Telugus : These people belong to Central-Dravidian linguistic family. Mostly found in Andra Pradesh. Hinduism is the main religion. There is a substantial Muslim population, and small population of Christians.
- Tamils : These people belong to South-Dravidian linguistic family. Mostly found in Tamil Nadu and in Sri Lanka. The major religions are Hinduism, and Islam. Christianity is also practiced.
- Malayalis : The people of Kerala belong to South-Dravidian linguistic family. Except for a small percentage of Muslims all religious groups be it, Hindus, Christians or Muslims speak Malayalam as their mother tongue.
A large proportion of the Muslim population of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh speak Urdu or other Indo-Aryan languages as their mother tongue.
References
- Bryant, Edwin (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195137779.