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Mirror of Tamiḻ and Sanskrit
R. Nagaswamy
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1. PREHISTORIC TAMIḺAKAM
1.1. Paleolithic Age
The history of prehistoric Tamiḻnāṭu begins with the early Stone Age man who has been living in its North Eastern part, near Madras. In fact, pre-historic studies in India began in 1863, when a Paleolithic tool was discovered near Madras, by Robert Bruce Foot, of the Geological Survey of India. All the Paleolithic sites so far found are located near Madras and are estimated to have been occupied from the middle Pleistocene period. In the earlier phase, the Abbevillean hand axes with bifacial working and the pebble butt are found, followed by the Acheullian hand axes. The early stone axe Industries are generally divided into two types, the one called the Madras Industry deriving its name from the city of Madras (where it was first recognized), and the other, the Soan Industry of North India. The important places known to Archaeologists, yielding these prehistoric stone tools are Gudiyam, and Vadamadurai (all near Madras), where Attirampakkam and Vadamadurai excavations have been conducted. The tools are mostly hand axes, cleavers, flake tools, and so on which shows a gradual evolution. Some rock shelters have been identified. The only associated human relic found thus far is a ‘tibia’ with both ends broken, now preserved in Oxford.
1.2. Microlithic Age
Towards the end of the Paleolithic Age, Micro-lithic implements began to appear, almost without any break. The micro-lithic man gradually spread to all parts of Tamiḻnāṭu, from the Northern districts is seen from the presence of micro-lithic tools in Tanjore, Trichy, and Pudukkoṭṭai districts in middle regions and Ramnad and Tirunelveli in the extreme south. In the last mentioned region namely Tirunelveli district, fossil beaches of calcareous sands are known as Teri sites (sand dunes) on the sea-coast, yielding microliths of fine varieties which have attracted the attention of Archaeologist of International repute like Prof. Zeuner. These micro-liths are made of chart, silicified wood, and limpid quartz, which were foreign to this region. Most of the tools are stained with red hydrated ferric oxide and are pressure-flaked with bifacial points not found elsewhere in India. Prof. Zeuner called it ‘The Tinneveli Teri Industry’. This micro-lithic phase of Tamiḻnāṭu was still in a pre-pottery stage and is assigned to a period around 5000 B.C.E.
1.3. Neolithic Tamiḻnāṭu
From the stage of wandering in search of food, the man in Tamiḻnāṭu settled to a stage of food production, in the Neolithic period around circa 2500 B.C.E. Marked by the use of Neolithic polished hand-axes, the technique of making pottery both handmade and turned on slow wheel are found in the Neolithic complex. The Neolithic people of Tamiḻnāṭu were concentrated in the Northern districts like Dharmapuri, North Arcot, and a part of Chingleput districts. They seemed to have lived in circular pit dwellings and mostly cultivated crops on hilly terraces. There is no full-fledged Neolithic phase in India. In central and Western India, copper tools occur frequently with Neoliths while in the South its occurrence is sporadic. The dead were buried within the settlement very often right in the houses. The fully evolved Neolithic stone industry and sophisticated pottery technique along with the worship of the Bull and the Goddess seems to have arrived. Neolithic people were pastoral and kept large herds of cattle (cows and buffaloes). They cultivated grain such as rāgi (Elusine Coracana) and hulgi. Rāgi is said to have come from Africa. The headrests found in the excavation are typically Egyptian (according to Archaeologists) thus maritime contact is indicated. In the vicinity of Neolithic settlements, Ashmounds consisting of burnt cow dung have been noticed. These were held by some Archaeologists as burnt-up ashes “fired in connection with seasonal festivals marking such events as the beginning or end of the annual migrations to forest grazing grounds”. However recent studies seem to indicate that these were connected with either the pot-firing or iron-smelting industry. Regarding their origin, two views are expressed. Sir. Mortimer Wheeler held the view that the people making polished Neolithic pointed butt, axes migrated from Central China; via North Eastern India, while others hold that they migrated from the Turkoman steppe and the Elburg Mountains’ and through Baluchistan and Northwestern India reached the Tamiḻ land. However, the works of all authorities seem to suggest that while the great civilization of Indus Valley was flourishing in the North-west, the Neolithic people were the main folk to be encountered in Tamiḻ land lasted hardly 1000 years though the pointed butt axes continued to be used as cult objects subsequently as well.
1.4. Megalithic Age
The most fascinating aspect of Tamiḻ prehistory is the occurrence of thousands of megalithic graves of various forms, found spread all over Tamiḻnāṭu, from its northern borders to the extreme south. They are found also in large numbers in the adjoining regions of Āndhradesa, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and part of Madhyapradesh. Recent notices have brought to light the same, in other parts of India but in a sporadic manner. The main concentration of these graves is found in Southern India. The graves of different forms include dolmens, dolmenoid cists, cist burials, cairns, stone circles, menhirs, urn burials, and stone avenues. These are sepulchral monuments erected; either containing skeletal remains or as memorials, found with funerary appendages in both cases. Except for a few instances wherein fully articulated skeletons are found, indicating primary burials, the remains are fragmentary in nature in other cases pointing to post-excoriated deposits. In some burials, full skeletons are in a couched position. In the cists and dolmens, which are mostly east-west oriented, portholes are found in the eastern slab which was closed after interments. Some cists were found with multiple chambers and sometime evidence of their use, as family tombs have also been noticed. The urns in many cases were performed in shape and noticed with lid covering. Even the urn burials were topped with stone slabs or heaps of stones indicating their lithe character. Some of the cists contained legged sarcophagi, occasionally with animal heads, carrying skeletal remains and grave goods. The dolmens on account of their small chamber-like structure are called Kuraṅgu-paṭṭadai (Monkey’s workshop) or Vāliyār-vīdu (the abode of Vāli).
The grave goods consisted mainly of pottery of different sizes and shapes, iron tools and implements, and occasionally copper and gold objects. In the female graves, combs were also found. The iron implements included swords of broad and thin blades, trident spearheads, lamp stands, and so on. The most important site to have been excavated is Adicchanallur in Tirunelveli district, in the extreme south. Besides iron and earthen, objects the urns contained copper and gold objects. Among copper objects was found a tiny female figurine identified as Mother Goddess. Also found are metal plates and lamp stands with animal and bird motifs, representing the earliest metal arts thus far found in Tamiḻnāṭu. A few gold diadems, resembling the ones found in Mycenae, were also unearthed. Recently this site has been re-excavated and yielded hundreds of burial urns with black and red war pottery but except in one case, no inscribed pot has been found. Even in the solitary case where some graffiti mark is found which is claimed as Brāhmi inscription. This claim is dismissed as totally unacceptable as the scratching is said to be found inside where examination has found no such letters. A doubtful claim is again advanced about the carbon 14 dating, but the ASI authorities have not agreed there are any such findings on their official files.
The megalithic burials are almost invariably associated with iron so much so they are termed “iron age burials”. The most significant pottery found in these graves is what is called “Black and red ware” with the interior and a part of the exterior showing a highly polished black surface and the rest of the exterior being red. This special type so far noticed only in the megalithic complex is now beginning to appear in the pre-iron age Chalco-lithic complex. Excavations conducted in Nubia, Egypt have brought to light not only identical Black and red ware pottery but also found stone circles, cap stones, and stone lining of pits. However, the Egyptian graves are pre-iron in age and are dated to the 1st - 2nd millennium B.C. Some possible connection in pre-iron age is postulated between the two.
The megaliths of South India were the first prehistoric monuments to attract Western scholars about 150 years ago, mainly on account of their close resemblance to Western European and Middle Eastern megaliths. The prevalent opinion among archaeologists holds that the megalithic cult is of scythio-Iranian origin traveling via Afganisthan, Baluchisthan, and the West coast of India, reaching the southern peninsula around 1000 B.C.E. The builders of the megalithic grave are also conjecturally identified with the speakers of proto-Dravidian or Dravidian languages”. There is nothing to prove this hypothesis. But it is evident that by around the 3rd century BCE, the Tamiḻ language had developed into a well-structured language and possibly a few centuries earlier. This should have been a local dialect like the neighboring regions but the classicism of the Tamiḻ ought to have begun several centuries earlier to reach the refinement it exhibits by the 3rd century BCE. By all accounts, Saint Agasthya was principally responsible for developing this classism by refining grammar, and not unlikely it started in the Pāṇḍyā region where the ancestors of the Pāṇḍyā invariably claim that they learned Tamiḻ and Sanskrit from Agastya who was a Vedic Ṛṣī. The earliest literature and inscriptions like the copper plates attest to this claim. Agastya was not only a great linguist but also a great legal expert advising the Pāṇḍyās. The Pāṇḍyās also claimed in a copper plate that they were originally anointed according to Atharva Vedic procedures. Obviously, Agastya was also an Atharva vedin who could have mastered the Atharva Veda in which much medicinal knowledge was available, and the strong tradition that he was also an author of a treatise on Medicines seems to point to his contribution. If these persisting traditions are to be accepted he was the First to integrate the Tamiḻs with the rest of the country. Though the Pāṇḍyan copper plates state that Agastya was the purohita of the Pāṇḍyās, no legal text in Tamiḻ attributed to him has not come down. Similarly in the field of music and dance, there was a text called Agattiyam said to have been prevalent in the pre Saṅgam age. Agastya was said to be a master of playing “Vīṇa”. Such tributes to Agastya both in epigraphical and literary traditions point to a tremendous personality who contributed immensely to the development of Tamiḻ as the most refined language akin to Samskrit of the north. As he was unquestionably from the north he followed the northern tradition and by the time of Tolkāppiyar and the Saṅgam poets Tamiḻ had been so integrated with literary Prākṛt and Sanskrit tradition that it is impossible to isolate it from Sanskrit tradition. The Megalithic cult lasted from about 1000 B.C.E. to the 3rd Century C.E., and perhaps even later in the historic age. The erection of dolmens gave rise to the cult of Hero-stones or Memorials stones, which were erected till recent times and among some tribes is still a living tradition. Todās of Nilagiri hills in Tamiḻnāṭu still erect such sepulchral monuments.
Recently rock paintings have been found in the vicinity of megalithic graves. An important recent discovery is the anthropomorphic stone figure of Mother Goddess found in north Tamiḻnāṭu, carved in granite stone and rising to a height of 3.50 m. shows a rounded head, arms, and legs. The figure is surrounded by orthostatic stone circles, and bears absolute resemblance to later day Śrīvatsa symbols representing the “Goddess of Wealth”. Similar figures of Mother goddesses have been found in the grave goods of other parts as well.