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An Outline for Research in Pre-History of India

S.N.Mahalingam
Superintending Engineer TN PWD(Retd)

Preamble:
The Aryan and Dravidian enigma is still remains unresolved as we go
through the recent papers in the various seminars. The point is still
we rely on the spade work done by the European masters on this subject
which was based on the Sanskrit scriptures and archaeological data. He
various results obtained is due to the different interpretations of the
scriptures and archaeological data. The author of this article got
interested in this subject from his school days and read many works and
from the knowledge thus obtained and his mulling over this subject for
decades (Is it intuitive contemplation?),and the recent study of some
historical, religious and philosophical works urged him to put
everything on paper. As he has not taken any notes from his studies in
the earlier days he could not furnish them. However some references
have been given.

Prevedic period:
The Aryans, a nomadic tribe, hunters and shepherds appears to have
started their journey in search of greener pastures for their cattle.
They stayed for brief periods in places and due to population pressure
a portion of them moved to newer places. As they were nomadic tribes
they did not build any structures for living and contented to live in
the habitat provided by the nature for which they were habituated.
Perhaps due to this they despised any buildings and destroyed them as
the aryans will not live in them. Likewise they killed all humans who
will not be useful to them, as they have to share the resources with
them. This went on for hundreds of years and the invasions happened in
wave like patterns. So the historians stated that 'the waves of Aryan
hordes' invaded the India or successive floods of invasions etc.

They appear to have passed through Mesopotamia, Persia and Afghanistan

and reached India. In those earlier periods Afghanistan, Gandhara, was
also considered as a part of India and perhaps due to this now it is
included in the SAARC.

The invasion by waves of Aryans caused destruction to a very large

scale such that nothing that can be called as heritage of that
conquered country remained and only the Aryan culture prevailed.
During their invasion of Mesopotamia, they have to encounter ordinary
folks as well as artisans and men of learning and men well versed in
arts. Here they developed some respect for learning and perhaps learnt
how to read the stars and also learnt about fabulous India advanced in
arts and culture. They picked up some of their culture and probably
taken with them the men of learning with their manuscripts along with
them. Probably the Aryans and the learned men accompanying them when
they were in Persia composed the initial portions of Rig-Veda
eulogizing the Vedic gods which are similar to the gods of Persia
during that period. The authors might be both Aryans and the
Mesopotamians traveling with them and Persians.
 Vedic Period and later:
The same scenario was enacted in Afghanistan and Punjab during their
invasion. On entering Punjab they were amazed at the buildings of
various types and the luxurious living conditions of the locals. As
usual they chose to kill every person men, women and children whoever
is not useful to them and destroyed all the buildings due to their
aversion, but spared learned men and their manuscripts. They destroyed
temples also as they despised saivisim of the natives and the phallic
symbol of Siva. If the Somnath temple has existed during that period
they would have destroyed it. Probably in Kasi or Varanasi the natives
would have guarded their saivaite temples if they had existed during
their period of invasion.

During the periods of peace the some of the Aryans spent time to
discuss with the descendants of learned men picked up in Mesopotamia
Persia Afghanistan and India about the contents of the manuscripts and
as they were in different languages decided to translate them into
their language. As their language Vedic was ill-equipped for that, all
the learned men of these cultured made a language suitable for
translating the colleted manuscripts into the new language samskrit,the
perfect language. So the ancient Sanskrit literature, including the
later verses of Rig-Veda as well as the Vedas down could be the
adaptations of the works of Mesopotamia, Persia and Indian. They
adapted the literature to suit their culture, perhaps a hybrid culture,
at this period. Perhaps they may be original Vedic literature composed
during that period by both the Aryan and non-Aryan scholars. The name
of the rishis ending with Maharshi may be taken as belonging non-aryans.

The scholars were puzzled why the ancient written manuscripts are not
available to corroborate the archaeological findings or the
establishment of facts about the people who inhabited these regions?
The answer that this author can give is in the form of another
question. What we will do after reading a news paper? We collect the
news paper till the end of the month and sell to the street hawker who
purchases the old newspaper. They did the same thing with the
manuscripts in other languages after translating into Sanskrit. They
burnt them a day prior to winter solstice. This indicates the
involvement of non-aryans, say, Dravidians also in the composition of
Vedic literature and also destruction of the source literature in
different languages. That is why neither the built up structures nor
manuscripts of those distant periods were not found.

In this I connection I recall that V.Ganapathi Stapathi who constructed

Thiruvalluvar statue at KumariMunai has stated in a Vãstu seminar a
decade back that Sanskrit is a South Indian Language. Probably that is
why still Sanskrit is spoken in a village by name Mathur near Shimoga
of Karnataka. He has also stated that a person came to him professing
that he has memorized an ancient text the language of it is unknown to
him. So the Stapathi arranged to record that with the support of the
then Tamilnadu government. It needs further research.

Still some manuscripts may be available in the old Jain and Saiva mutts
and guarded as sacred relics and were denied access to them even for
inspection or copying of them. Some may be available with ancient
families living under remote places,

The impetus for writing is a passage in the French book by Madeleine

Biardeau : L'Hindouisme : Anthropologie d'une Civilisation,
Flammarion.1995.,which roughly translated as "in 1986 on Tamil(scholar)
wrote a letter stating that 'what the people without knowing, now say
as Aryan culture and civilization is Dravidian or Tamil, culture and
civilization. The Dravidians had presented to the Aryans a culture and
Civilization ready made for their adoption. This needs the presence of
Dravidians or Tamils in the northern sub-continent of India.

Another French source stated that the area on the right side of
Himalayas when looking east is called Dakshina Desha (Thennadu). The
people born in that land are hindus. Jean Varenne : L'Hindouisme Des
Textes Sacrés :Encyclopédie des Mystiques - vol iii:
Ed.Marie-madeleine Davy ; Petite Bibliothéque Payot. Dakshina Desha is
nothing but Then-Nadu.

Manickavasagar in one of his hymns has stated 'thennadudaiya sivaney

ennattirkum Iraiva Pottri' Here according to this author what he meant
by Thennadu is the area located on the south of Himalayas as saivism
is stated to have been the religion followed by the people in India
during prehistoric times.

Again, the verse 'vadavenkatam then kumari aayidai tamil kurum

nallulagam' was read by the author somewhere. An interpretation
suggested is that the poet meant by Vadavenkatam, Himalayas and not
Tiruppathy Hills. And by the kumari he meant only Kumari Nadu and not
cape-camorin. For it would have been suffice to state, "Venkatam
KumariAayidai Tamilkurum Nallulagam' if he meant only Tamil Nadu.

One more additional interpretation of the statement which the author

read perhaps in Iraiyanaar Agapporulurai, 'Muthal Sangam at Mathurai
and the second Sangam at Kapaadapuram were taken over by Kadal'. This
can be interpreted as taken over by the wavelike Aryan invaders, will
place the first Sangam at Mathura( i ) and the second Sangam at
Pada(li)pu(tra)m. May be padaliputra is a corrupted version of
Kapadapuram. May be it is near Cuddalore as revealed recently the
existence of a locality called as Padaliputra. The author is of the
opinion the first two sangams existed and only mis-reported in the
Tamil passages. The place of fist sangam probably at Mathura and the
second sangam either at Pataliputra or Patna or the new Pataliputra at
Cuddalore. It is to be noted that the fist sangam was presided by siva
who has burnt tripuram which may be located in present Tripura a
northeast Indian state. The archaeologists have to look for Tripuram to
corroborate the theory that Siva was the president of the first sangam.

If the assumption that the presence of Dravidians or Tamils in

northern India holds water then a large portion of Sanskrit literature
including Vedas, Upanishads etc. are the adapted versions of Tamil or
Dravidian scriptures. For example Aintiram of Tamil is available as
Aintira Vyakarna. Mayan is said to be the author of these two works. He
is also said to be the author of several Sanskrit works. He is said to
be a non-aryan.

Further during the invasion of Aryans and later Muslims a large number
of telugu and kannada speaking families of artisans like weavers,
goldsmiths, silversmiths, coppersmiths, carpenters, silphis and etc.,
also fled north India. They are found everywhere scattered throughout
India.
Some families are found in Tamilnadu also. There is one artisan weaver
caste devangars who speak Telugu as well as Kannada. Several Telugu
speaking families with family name santhri, who are weavers by
profession, live in Salem district. But it is found one town by name
santhri exists even now in Haryana. May be they would have fled the
country either during the Aryan or Muslim invasion of India.

The author has read somewhere that devangam a fabric woven by these
people finds a mention in the Sangam literature which proves their
presence in Tamilnadu during that period. Many families even family
speaks Telugu a Dravidian language and by appearance are also
Dravidians. They continue to speak Telugu even they are among the Tamil
speaking population for more than two thousand years.

Further till about fifty years ago they were using handlooms made of
wood without nail in their manufacture which dates them to Bronze Age.

The author used the internet to find the distribution of persons having
the family name as santhri and its variants santri, santrie, shantri,
shantrie, chantrie, chantri and the search has shown thousands of
entries showing the names of persons having santhri or its variant as
family name. There are hundreds of family names pertaining to the
different telugu and kannada speaking groups. Browsing through the
internet and analyzing the entries may throw more light on the
prehistory of India or the world.

The presence of Brahui, (a dialect of Tamil) speaking people, in

Baluchistan is an additional information to show the presence of
Dravidians in north India. It is interesting to note that in spite of
residing in Tamilnadu, the Telugu speaking weaver community did not
switch over to Tamil. In addition the present Brahui speaking people
are said to be certainly not Dravidians. Then one has to imagine far
how long they would have lived among Tamil speaking people to adopt
tamil as their mother tongue and they continue to speak till now.

Again there is an interesting anecdote. The author during one of his

professional visits in Algeria, met an engineer who belonged to a
tribal family called Kabili. They speak the language Kabili and they
live in isolated pockets of Algeria among the Arabic speaking Arabs.
They still maintain their culture and language which is said to be
different from the Arab culture. The engineer said that a minister of
Algeria who belonged to his tribe has stated in a meeting that during
the minister's visit to India he went to a village where the
inhabitants spoke a language similar to Kabili. It is for the scholars
of relevant disciplines to investigate this. Strangely enough the
family name of that engineer is Kadi one of family names of telugu
speaking weavers in Tamilnadu.

During the author's stay of the Algeria he has found an Arab family
having its family name as Benagala. Is it not interesting to note that
there is a prominent family having a family name as Benegal.
Investigating the family names of different countries and India may
result in very interesting similarities. Again, a place rich in oil
resources in the heart of Sahara is named after Varkala of Kerala. The
name Mithala appears as Metlili in another place in Sahara. This is
also another area for research.
The author appeals for further research in this regard based on the
above lines or innovative thinking to further the knowledge about our
heritage and its contribution to the world culture. To seek the truth
one should constrain himself with any pre-notions and be prepared to
examine all the data or information that he encounters. The cooperation
of the authorities of the different siva and jain mutts to be solicited
for permitting access to the manuscripts hoarded by them.

The author is indebted to Alliance Française of Madras, ICHR Regional

Centre at Bangalore, Mythic Society ,Bangalore for permitting him to
utilize their facilities.

Some References :
Alain Danielou ;Histoire de L'Inde, Editions du Fayard.
Arjunan Pillai.M : Ancient Indian History, Ashish Publishing House,
New Delhi
Chandrika G.: The Impact iridology on Early History of Tamilnadu,
Tamilnadu History Congress, Mayiladuthurai, 2005
Gandhimadi K.: Pataliputra of Asncient Tamillagam, Tamilnadu History
Congress, Mayiladuthurai, 2005
Jean Varenne : L'Hindouisme Des Textes Sacrés :Encyclopédie des
Mystiques - vol iii : Ed.Marie-madeleine Davy ; Petite Bibliothéque
Payot.
Ganapathi Stapati.V :Vastu Vedic ResearchFoundation, Thiruvalluvar
Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai - 600041.
Kosambi. DD: The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India.
Majumdar. R.C.: Ancient India, Motilal Banarsidas, Varanasi.
Ramanathan P.: Sangam Literature in its Historic Setting - Certain
Aspects from a Contemporary Perspective. Tamilnadu History Congress,
Mayiladuthurai, 2005
Ram Sahara Sharma, Advent of Aryans in India
Sharma R.S :Looking for the Aryans, Orient Longmans