Thursday 16 March 2017

'Dravida' refers to Tamil in Rajatarangini of c. 1128 AD

The most ancient origin of the languages Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam can be traced to the 7th, 9th and 10th centuries respectively.

It took a century or two for these languages to stabilise.

Huen Tsang who travelled across the sub-continent in the seventh century, when Pallavas ruled Tamilnadu, records that he saw Tamilnadu after crossing Godavari. Telugu did not get developed as a language full scale by then.

The word 'Telugu' was not used before the 10th century.

Rajatharangini, written in the 12th century AD,  by Kalhana in  c. 1128 AD, records the word 'Dravida' to refer only to Tamil.

He records the word 'Karnataka' to refer to Kannada, 'Thailangaa' to refer to Telugu and then records the word 'Dravida' to refer only to the Tamils (including those who lived in the area called Kerala now).
It calls the Brahmins of (1) Karnataka, (2) Telugu (AP), (3) Dravida (4) Maharashtra and (5) Gujarath as Pancha Dravida Brahmins south of Vindhyas.


(The meaning of this stanza is that the Karnatakashcha, Tailangaa, Dravida, Maharashtraka and Gurjarshcha constitute the Five Dravida (Pancha Dravida) south of Vindhyas.)

The word Dravida in the first line had been used to refer only to the land of Tamils in those days.
The word Dravida did not restrict itself only to the south indian linguistic belt but also to Maharashtra and Gujarat.

In fact, all the Non Brahmins who inhabited the sub-continent before the arrival of Aryans were Dravidians. They are Dravidians now, too.


The following is added today because of the increased visit to this post during the past two days:

Sloka 604 of Rajatarangini mentions about the king giving money to the 'Dravidian' . This establishes the fact that the term 'Dravidian' had been in common usage in the social life of the people in the 12th century when the work Rajatarangini was written besides indicating the usage of the term in the earlier centuries too.