From: kat@doe.carleton.ca (Kathiravan Krishnamurthi)
Subject: Tamil-Facts-1
Organization: Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 14:28:48 GMT


    A tamizh anpar, piriyar and nEsar Ravi Kuchimanchi tries
to denigrate tamizh and putting Sanskrit in a high platform.
He writes from some body's account and does not want a reply.
If you have facts correctly and attack some language or
culture why should you be afraid. 
Mother Tamizh is like a sun (sooriyan, kathiravan. aathavan).
She will not worry if somebody barks at her. Nothing will happen. 
We will not put Sanskrit down to raise Tamizh. Allready
tamizh has established as a classical Dravidian language
with rich literature and cultural backing with a distinct grammar.
But to start a healthy discussion and elucidate some
facts I thought of sending a series of mails. The statements
made in this series will have references unlike Mr Ravi Kuchimanchi's
baseless ones.

       

1.  Ravi had mentioned that Tamil is just like Bengali, another
Indo-Aryan language. The answer:

     TAMIL and SANSKRIT (Jean Fillizoat )

Dr. Jean is an Indologist from France. This is extracted from his
paper presented at a conf in Paris.

     These two languages belong to different linguistic families,
but both are Indian. Both have means of expression of large original
literatures. Both have been regularly taught through centuries
according to an early fixed tradition of grammar and rhetorics.

     The first fact we have to note is the coexistence and 
intermixing of Sanskrit and Tamil cultures all through their
joint history. In consequence of this fact the Tamil language and
culture has always been so strong in its originality that it not only
survived in spite of the permanent pressure of sanskrit and other Indo-Aryan
languages and cultures, but also has developed in parallel with the other
languages and cultures. 

    Tamil literature did not develop in a cultural vacuum, and that
the evolution of the Tamil culture was not achieved either in isolation,
or by simple cultural mutation. Tamil literature
manifests clear traces of Aryan influence-just as the very beginnings of
the Indo-Aryan literature, the rigvedic hyms, show traces of Dravidian
influence.
   If Sanskrit was also popular in Tamil land not only in literary circles
but also amoung the people, it is not because it was imposed
from the North by political power or social conquest or literary
superiority. Otherwise Tamil would not have flourished so
strongly up to the present.. It was because Sanskrit was freely accepted by
Tamilians, without any prejudice to their own culture, as the best means
of diffusion of this very culture in educated circles both of
Tamil land and All India. That is why Ramanujaa, for example,
who followed the ideas of nammaazhvaar, wrote his works in sanskrit.

 2. Coming to his attack on Tolkaapiyam without facts.

I had only quoted
Kamil Zvelibil's (again an indologist) statement about
Tolkaapiyam.

 Our friend is not the first attacker of Tolkaapiyam. There have
been in history some people in the Brahmannical circles in
TN before.

The following statement is again from the paper of Dr Jean


   "Sometimes the dominance of sanskrit has been exaggerated in
some Brahmanical circles of Tamil land. This is clear if we consider legends
like that of the teaching of Tamizh grammar by Agastya, coming from
the North, to Tamil poet nakkIrar. It is apparent too in the story
of how Saraswathi was compelled to be reborn as 48 Tamizh pulavar
representing the letters of Sanskrit, including those which do not exist
in Tamil.

    The vogue of sanskrit grammar also led sometimes to the composition
of grammars, such as VeracOzhiyam, after the sanskrit pattern,
which is not suited to the Tamizh language as was the model followed by Tolkaapiyam.
"

More on Tolkaapiyam in the next part.

Kathiravan