Tamil is Part of Indian Heritage
I am from Kerala but I lived in Tamil Nadu (mostly in Madurai and Coimbatore) for a couple of decades. Due to state government policies then I was forced to learn Tamil during my school days. I did not like being pressured to learn a new language but I am now glad that I did get that opportunity. Tamil is a unique and beautiful language and learning Tamil opened my eyes to a literary and artistic world that I did not know existed.
Most Indians outside of Tamil Nadu and particularly those from North India assume that people from Tamil Nadu are anti-Hindi. I do not think that is true. Most Tamilians that I have met and know are extremely proud of their language and heritage and rightly so (in this sense they are like the French). Any fair review of how history is taught in India today will reveal the marginalization of the role that Tamil played in Indian literature, the close relationship between Tamil and the Buddhist and Jain culture or the cultural takeover of South India by the Brahminical religions (Vaishnavism and Shaivism).
History as the saying goes is written by the winners. Shaivism and Vaishnavism and their sacred language Sanskrit are the winners while the Buddhists and the Jains and one of their sacred languages (Tamil) got the long end of the stick. Starting with the sixth and seventh century (about 1300 years ago) parts of South India including parts of modern day Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh started falling under the influence of Brahminical religions and therefore under the influence of Sanskrit.
Buddhist, Jain and indigenous temples were reinstalled as Vishnu or Shiva temples (or their incarnations). Most of the South Indian gods and their mythologies were incorporated into Shaivism and Vaishnavism (there is no mention of Tirumala temple, Lord Murugan or Lord Ayyappan in any ancient Sanskrit texts). Tamil was replaced by Sanskrit as the language of worship. The belief that Buddha was a former Hindu prince was now firmly enshrined in peoples mind (this is in spite of the fact that this little “story” is not factually accurate. The concept of the Buddha (an enlightened person) is as ancient as the Vedas themselves.
As an Indian I hope that in the near future the Indian educational system provides people with the facts of what actually happened rather than spread inaccurate information. Today there are many Hindus who are very upset over conversions from Hinduism to Islam or Christianity without realizing that they themselves were at one point converted from Buddhism to Hinduism.
Below are some of my thoughts on Tamil and Sanskrit and how they relate to India.
Sanskrit the oldest language? Sanskrit is clearly not the oldest language in the world nor is it the mother of all the languages in the world. Sanskrit is only as old as Greek, Latin or Hebrew among the Indo-European languages. Most experts in this field now believe that there was a Proto Indo-European language that was a precursor to all the Indo-European languages spoken in this world including Sanskrit (Indo Europeans are people who migrated from Central Asia to Europe, India, China and eventually to North America).
Sanskrit older than Tamil? This question can never be answered. We know that human beings spoke “languages” for hundreds and maybe thousands of years before they invented writing. The only question we maybe able to answer is which language has the oldest documented texts. This is again a difficult question to answer because most of the sacred scriptures and other information were orally transmitted for hundreds of years before they were documented.
Most people consider the Vedas (particularly the Rig Veda) as a very old text (based on the stories, the context and the settings). But the documented version of the Vedas is only about 2000 years old. So how old are the Vedas? This holds true for most of the ancient Tamil texts like the Tolkappiam.
Sanskrit and Tamil are Indian Languages? According to many experts written language and first human civilizations began in the Middle East. Both ancient Sanskrit and proto-Tamil are languages that have roots in the Middle East but flourished later in India. There is now an emerging belief that the scripts of the Indus Valley Civilization are Dravidian and not Indo-European (the whole script is yet to be deciphered). This would place the Dravidian languages in India long before the Indo-European languages.
Sanskrit is the language of Hinduism? Most Hindus today are quick to lay claim to the Vedas (written in ancient Vedic Sanskrit) as the source for Hinduism. The fact is that most Hindus today will hardly recognize the gods and goddesses described in the Vedas. It should also be noted that the Vedas are as relevant to a Buddhist or a Jain as it is to a Hindu. In that sense it is not a “Hindu” document nor is it meant to be.
Hinduism is a collection of hundreds of religions and beliefs. For some branches of Hinduism like the Shaivas and Vaishnavas Sanskrit is important. But for others it is not (it is very common for the priestly class to use languages that are either dead or barely spoken or understood during rituals. This is an effective way to control “information” in ancient days. The use of Latin in Christian Churches, Arabic in Mosques and Sanskrit in Hindu temples are common examples).
“If a thousand old beliefs were ruined in our march to truth we must still march on” – Stopford Brooke (Irish Writer)
Related posts:
- Promoting and Preventing the Tamil Language From Extinction
- Thirumala Venkateswara Temple: From Buddhism to Hinduism
- Shree Jagannath Temple Puri: Discrimination is part of the Tradition
- Indian Culture Includes Western Culture
- Hinduism in India: Originated From Steppes
Category: Culture & Religion
I think that knowing more about languages and its origins is something special, at least because I am a teacher. I collect special articles that talk about origins and roots;let me tell you that I learnt about Belgium sharing flemish and french; about my own country Mexico and the 62 languages that are officially accepted. My father,Mexican translatorJorge Lujan, worked many years ago at the Embassy of India in Mexico City so he got some brochures from regions and historical links. I was a little child but in thatmoment I knew I loved India; I started reading about geography, religion,languages, history. Congratulations because know I have a friendly link. Thanks a lot,Alma Lujan
I am happy to know of your connections to India. I am surprised to learn that Mexico has 62 languages.
I hope you visit my site often. Good luck with your project for the next school year.
It may be worth noting that the Bhakti movement involving Alwars & Nayanmars (Appar, Sundarar, Sambandar) contributed to many works exclusively in Tamil. It is not accurate to represent Shaivism and Vaishnavism as exclusively sankrit-driven.
Similarly many Siddhas and even reknowned poets who lived 1200 years ago created extraordinary works in Tamil.
I’m equally proud of the Sanskrit heritage and excellence achieved by the Tamil. Only those with agendas try to praise one of these at the expense of other.
You have highlighted some very good points and I agree with you completely.
My intention was not necessarily compare the two but to highlight the strong position that Sanskrit has in Indian society and the marginalization of Tamil particularly in our education system.
I am often saddened by the fact that an average Indian today cannot name a single Tamil literary work.
Why many people wants to portray any one language as the mother of all languages? Its not true that Sanskrit is the origin of all languages.
We have other dead languages like Prakrit, Pali which directly influenced the currently spoken languages of India including Tamil.
In-fact Prakrit was widely spoken and the common mans language used in India than Sanskrit. Majority of Ashoka’s edicts found are in Prakrit not in Sanskrit.
The scripts for Sanskrit came well after those of Prakrit.
Tamil(Dravidian) as a spoken language is much older than Sanskrit in India.
Tamil as a written language is much younger than the dead languages like Sankrit, Pali etc.
Tamil has given many words to other Indian languages including Sankrit.
In Tamil we have Similar objects has similar sounding names.
For ex. Paarvai(Visible), Parantha(Spread), Paravai(Flying Bird), Para(Fly), Paranthaman(God who is everywhere), Paar(World), Pari(horse running fast) etc…
In this way its easier to identify/seperate Tamil or Dravidian origin words from Sanskrit or any other languages.
For ex. the first word “AKara” in Thirukural (In Pali “akara” means what which remains after an object disappears) Here in Tamil Thirukkural it means “A Sound(letter) that which is hidden in every words”.
This is a Tamil word with Origin of words like
Kari,Kaar, Karuppu,Karai,karpu(Darkness,Black,Elephant,Black Clouds,Disappears,Melts away, The shore) mostly words which means the invisbility that starts before the visibility.
Another word “Ulaku” often said to be from Sanskrit which is not true.
It came from the word Ullathu (whatever), Akam (Inside) meaning the world what we see.
similar word is KadaUl(Who crossed what we see or who is above ALL)
As the Great Kavi Bhrathi said, Tamil is a sweet language and it retained in itself the majority of words still used by the early South Indians(Dravidians)
Hari,
Your articles are enlightening, Yes many Indians at least the south Indians, forgotten much of their great early literature works in favour of some mythical stories that originated from Sanskrit which is atleast alien to early South Indians.
One more important Tamil word in the first Kural which I missed in my last post is “Bagawan”
The word is actually “Pakavan” is an ancient word to denote the enlightened one or God.
PakAvan=Paka+Avan
Paga means Light/Day/Radience/Heat in Tamil and denotes normally the Sun which enlighten people. (Pakalon, Pakalavan,Pakar,Pakal etc.)
We have “Avan” only in Tamil(Dravidian) meaning A “Person” like in “AandAvan,kanavan,mannavan etc.” .
So “Bagawan” is actually “Pagavan” One who is enlightened or God.
Thank you for the compliments Aruna. Personally I have nothing against Sanskrit or Vedic Hinduism. But there are a lot of aspects of India’s culture that are being sidelined in favor of a “majority” opinion. I am just pointing some of them out.
Good One from Hari and others
I have been in Madras(now called as Chennai) from 1991 to 1995 for my Aero Engineering.
I owe a lot to my Professors for what I am today, few on them have been teacher for their whole life..
I have got one query, may be some one can answer.
The names in Southern India are like seetha, geetha, neetha which we in north spell as seeta, geeta and neeta. Is it because we don’t have the letter “T” in dravidian language, and instead of that we have “TH”.
I still have known some tamil language, as I studied and lived in south for 7 years.
Now I know Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi besides knowing my mother tongue hindi.
One more query…
Have seen the places names like Karnataka, Andhra, Maharashtra have got added “a” in the end, but in local language we pronounced it as Karnatak, Maharashtr (I believe that in West we pronounced it with additional “a”, so south being influenced first by English, have adopted this or its due to some other reason..
I believe all indians should atleast understand prominent languages of india, as this would help him to know the culture better and to connect with every indian immediately.