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Re: DRAVIDIAN RELIGION
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Subject: Re: DRAVIDIAN RELIGION
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From: rajans@lehman.com (Subramanian Varadarajan)
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Date: Wed, 17 Aug 1994 16:23:08 GMT
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Apparently-To: alt-hindu@uunet.uu.net
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Newsgroups: alt.hindu
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Organization: Lehman Brothers
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References: <3296hf$33a@ucunix.san.uc.edu>
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Reply-To: rajans@lehman.com
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Sender: news@lehman.com (News)
+---- (Dinesh Agarwal writes)
|
| In fact if we examine the oldest Vedic Sanskrit, we find similar sounds to
Dravidian languages (the cerebral letters, for example), which are not present
in other Indo-European tongues. This shows either that there were already
Drvidians in the same region as the Vedic people, and part of the same culture
with them, or that Dravidian languages could also have been early off-shoots
of Sanskrit, which was the theory of the modern rishi, Sri Aurobindo. In
addition the traditional inventor of the Dravidian languages was said to have
been none other than Agastya, one of the most important rishis of the Rig
| Veda, the oldest Sanskrit text.
|
+----
With all due respects, I like to point out that Agastya was not an inventor
of Dravidian languages, or Tamil to be more particular. Legand has it that
it was Shiva who deputed Agastya to write the grammar for Tamil language
which was spoken/used even prior to Sage Agastya's work. But Agastya himself
chose his desciple Tholgapya's grammar for Tamil which was considered much
more simple than the one Agastya had developed. And this laid the foundation
for later classic Tamil literature I believe, and also spawned other Dravadian
languages. Agastya and Tholgapya are considered to be the Tamil counterpart of
Panini of Sanskrit.
If I am wrong on this, will someone please post more details on the correct
version.
Rajan
