Tamil Vs. Sanskrit Part II

Sanskrit: A Talibanic Offshoot!

“Destroy the language, if you want to destroy a race”, said Socrates.  Sanskrit was intended to do exactly that.

          Sanskrit was created with the intention of regaining and retaining the lost identity of Aryans during the sub-Buddhist era. If it has remained just like that we would have no grievance against it. But, the promoters of the language had, during the earlier NDA period, introduced it as an optional subject in the Central Schools.  Sanskrit news broadcast is encouraged and for that purpose the tax paid by the people of all languages are used. To cap it all, the propagandists are going to the extent of performing a “Talibanism” to suppress historical facts by claiming that this later-day-language is the mother of all other Indian languages. It is there where they have chosen to rub shoulders on the wrong side. It is, therefore, felt necessary that the Talibanic mentality of the promoters of Sanskrit must be exposed.

              That there exist in India, even at present, two linguistic–groups , (one the Dravidian and the other the Indo- Aryan) cannot be disputed. The striking similarity between the Indo- Aryan and European language in the basic vocabulary is a pointer to the fact that the Indo-Aryan language came from outside. In short, it is one of the many solid evidences proving the arrival of Aryans in the Indian scene from somewhere else. Until then, the Dravidians were living with their own Dravidian language throughout the length and breadth of the sub-continent. The evidence; “It is surmised not incorrectly that all the languages of India could be traced to one original family of language, and this family cannot be Indo- Germanic (Indo- Aryan) as is assumed, but native to the soil having its birth in Neolithic times, if not earlier. This is certainly true if we make a comparative study of the North- Indian and South- Indian vernacular dialects, for, in both, we see the same fundamental grammatical structures” (V. R. Ramakrishna Dikshidar-Pre- historic South India- Page 179). “These facts can only prove that people speaking dialects allied to Tamil once inhabited the whole of India” (P.T.Srinivasa Iyengar-the History of Tamils page 2).

             When the Aryans thus came here, they came with their own language. “Long before they entered India, the Vedic Aryans must have started producing prayers and songs (mantras) relating to their religion” (R. N. Dandekar- Records of Civilizations, Sources of Indian Tradition-Oxford-page 7). Their language is to be called as Vedic language and not Vedic Sanskrit. The term Vedic Sanskrit is a total misnomer. The word Sanskrit had been coined for the first time only in the 6th century BC. "Classical Sanskrit replaced the Vedic language for all practical purposes in later times even in the composition of books on law and religion” (Bharatarathna Bagwandas- the Cultural Heritage of India- By the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture-Vol IV-page 9).

               Owing to the wide prevalence of the union of Aryan males with non-Aryan females, the speech (as well as the social and religious life) of the Aryan people began to be modified very early on Indian soil”. There took place “the borrowing of the cerebral consonantal sounds from non- Aryan speech” (Dinesh Chandra Sirkar-ibid-page108). The Dravidian languages exerted a definite influence on Aryan languages when the Aryans first set foot on Indian soil in making them adopt cacuminal sounds”(Otto Jefferson-Language-page2) And the non- Aryans of North India too, when got mixed up with the Aryans, subjected the sounds of the Aryan tongue to various modifications suited to their own vocal tendencies and habits of speech. The result was that both the Vedic language of Vedic Aryans and the Northern Dravidian language of these non-Aryans lost their originalities and there emerged Prakrits, “the admixture of Aryan and Dravidian words based on Dravidian grammar.”

Sanskrit – a later day artificial creation

But, Sanskrit was given shape out of Prakrits at a later date. “Prakrit means ‘previously created’ and Sanskrit means ‘perfectly created’. (Devaneya  Paavaanar ) Thus the very name Sanskrit implies its posteriority to Prakrits in origin.” Sanskrit was a child of necessity. There was a time when the Aryans felt the need for resurrecting their Vedic language to regain and retain their lost but original identity. (The circumstances, which compelled and impelled them in this direction, make quite an interesting study but it is beyond the scope of this article). So, they formulated a language. But, they met with only a partial success in their mission. And the language thus created was named as the ‘Perfectly Created one’ (Sanskrit). It was only after naming their new language thus, the already existing Northern Dravidian languages were collectively styled by them as the ‘Previously Created Ones’ (Prakrits).

It is appropriate, at this juncture to analyse Pali, the then largely spoken form of Prakrits:

 (1) The short ‘e’ and ‘o’ found in the present day Dravidian language were indispensable in Pali too. But they are absent in Sanskrit. If Pali was, posterior to Sanskrit in origin, it would imply that these two sounds were later additions to the earlier born Pali. If so, there can be no reason why these sounds are absent in the present day North Indian languages also. Moreover, it would need explanation for the similarity between Tamil and Pali in this regard?

(2) There is only one sibilant (“cha” varga) in Pali as it is in Tamil. The same letter acquires three different sounds, i.e., cha, sa, and ja according to its placement in a word. There are simple phonetic formulae to explain them. The letter ‘Ka’ in ‘Kattil’ is pronounced as ‘Ka’, while in ‘Thaham’ (when preceded by another consonant- uyirmey) it is pronounced as ‘ha’ and in ‘Thangam’ (when preceded by its affiliate mey ‘ng’) it is pronounced as ‘ga’. Similar is the case with the other five plosives too. If Pali was posterior to Sanskrit, how come it did not take in to its fold all the three varga- letters of sibilants found in Sanskrit? This is one of the many vital questions which the grammarians on Sanskrit always evade answering.

(3) The process of universal - modification of the basic consonant at the end of a word (nilaimozhi eeru) in accordance with the first letter of the following word is found (varumozhi mudhal) in Pali and Tamil. But, such process is absolutely foreign to Sanskrit as well as the current Northern languages. If the period of Prakrits was in between the periods of Sanskrit and the present- day North- Indian languages, how could such a phenomenon have emerged and subsided in the languages of an intermediary period only?

(4) The nature of words in Pali is that they end with basic Nasals or Fricatives only as it is obtaining in Tamil. But, in Sanskrit, the words end with basic Plosives also. If Pali is posterior to Sanskrit why should and how could Pali renounce this vital aspect of Sanskrit while branching out of that language?

(5) There are only two numbers –Singular and Plural – in Pali and Tamil. But, Sanskrit has the additional ‘Dual ‘, which is of no sensible practical use. The present day North- Indian languages also do not have this ‘Dual’. The reason is that the people who resurrected their Vedic language could not make this phenomenon a popular one that this aspect remained only with Sanskrit and was not absorbed in to the fold of even the north Indian languages, which are based on Dravidian syntax with a lot of Aryan words interspersed.

Tamil – the donor of alphabet system to Sanskrit

These are just some of the many evidences to prove that Prakrits were essentially and pre-eminently Dravidian. The fact, therefore, is that, as already narrated, the Sanskrit was given shape out of Prakrits and while the shape was being given, the prime consideration of the formulators was to resurrect their original Vedic language. But their original Vedic language did not have scripts. “We have no evidence to show that the Vedic people had any knowledge of writing (or building cities) as the Indus Valley people had.” (Surendaranath Dasgupta -The Cultural Heritage of India – Vol.3 – The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture). The Vedic Aryans, on their arrival, were surprised to find that the Indus Valley people were communicating with each other without speaking or using signs by hand. The written mode of communication was viewed with wonder and astonishment. Their Vedic language, thereby, lacked certain essential features of a language and could not be made to stand on its own legs. So, the Vedic Aryans had to adapt and adopt the scripts, grammar and also the words from Prakrits. Yet, the resurrection of the Vedic language remained only a partial success. It was because of this amalgamation and absorption of Tamil structure, Dravidian (Tamil) influences are, still, far–reaching in the character of Sanskrit and are held to be responsible for the transformation into its present (Sanskrit) form of the original Vedic language.

It is Tamil, which is held to be donor of alphabet system to Sanskrit. Projecting it otherwise is anti-history and would betray the Talibanic mentality of the vested interests in suppressing the hoary history of Tamil.

Sanskrit - Never was the language of the masses.

Another false propaganda of such vested interests is to portray Sanskrit as if it had been the language of the masses once. Nothing is further from truth. “Sanskrit, at any given period in history, had always been the language of the privileged few. Not more than three per cent of the population spoke Sanskrit. In Kalidasa’s plays, only the King, the priest and a few others spoke Sanskrit. Everyone else, including the queen, spoke one form or the other of Prakrits, generally a highly evolved form called Maharashtri”-(Bharati Sukhatankar-Mirror- August 1980) Kalidasa’s period was 5^th century A. D.

According to the Buddhist scripture “Sullavakka’, Buddha ordered that his principles should be preached only in the mother –tongue of the people. He said that the people would not understand if his message is carried to them in Sanskrit which was not the popular language of the masses but understood only by a few learned. It proves that during the period of Buddha too (6th and 5th centuries B.C.,) i.e., roughly 1000 years prior to the era of Kalidas, Sanskrit had not been the language of the people. When did that language become a popular one, then? The answer is a definite ‘Never’.

This language has achieved one thing successfully. When the promoters of the language migrated in large scale in the last millennia beyond their much-cherished Aryavartha, they had found Tamil being spoken in its pristine glory in the entire peninsular India. They therefore, set about in an organized, systematic and calculated manner and converted different dialects of Tamil into different languages. They had thus created Telugu in the 7th century AD, Kannada in the 9th and Malayalam in the 11th centuries. The uniform pattern of alphabets of these languages would alone prove that the creation of these languages was the handiwork of certain specified group of scholars. That was their cleverest action after their permanent settlement in those areas.

Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu were not born out of Tamil. Except poets, no linguistic historian claims it to be so. Because, the fact is that the Tamil language spoken in those areas had just been converted as different languages by patterning the alphabets on the structure of Sanskrit with profuse sprinkling of words from Vedic lanaguage, as mentioned earlier. This is testified to by the very script system of these three languages. ‘Sapthamanu Darpana’ in Kannada lists out 18 words containing the letter ‘ழ’. But, these words are no more in use in the present Kannada. Again, the stone edicts in Andhra prove that the letter ‘ழ’ had been used in Andhra upto 7^th century BC. Hieun Tsang who visited Tamil Nadu during the period of Pallavas says that he saw Tamil Nadu after crossing Godhavari. ‘The Annals of Oriental Research’ published in 1952 by Prof.S. Ramakrishna Sastri of Madras University contains many facts in this regard. Adopting the doctrine of Socrates, the Aryans had attempted to be destroy the native language by converting it into multiple languages as their intention, at that time, was to consolidate their position after having enslaved the Dravidian race in the field of religion. They targeted the religion first and the language next.

There is no justification in spending the public money for the promotion of a language which is of no use to the society in general except, of course, (1) to the scholars who want to go through certain literary works which happened to have been made available in it or (2) to identify the students who opted for Sanskrit and show them favouritism of various kinds on the sly, like the manner in which only those who studied Sanskrit were admitted to Medical Colleges in the early 20^th century.

Sanskrit is projected only to promote the welfare of a particular Varna. Democracy, public welfare, equality, social harmony are all antithesis to Sanskrit right from the days of its creation in an artificial manner. The way Talibans indulged in the suppression of truth by destroying the Buddha statue, the Aryans started propagating that their artificial later-day creation, i.e., Sanskrit, was the mother of all Indian languages. Their game of  bluff  stands exposed by facts that have emerged in spite of the consistent tendency of Aryans to destroy the vestiges of their mischief.