From: rags@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Raghavan Jayaraman)
Subject: Re: Varna-ashrama dharma in the ancient Tamil civilization 
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 13:22:06 GMT


Even if one surmises that castes [mind that they number four] were
introduced by brahmins, how can he/she account for myriad subcastes which
don't exactly fit into above four varnas [this is the case atleast in TN]?

The novel answer is in the extract from the book of Kanakasabapathi:- that
the brahmins infused their varnashrama system into ancient tamil
civilization [don't ask me how pristine in dravidian {if this name
corresponds to one monolithic group} nature, these tamilians minus
brahmins:- that is well proved and authenticated by EVR and other
rationalists] by classifying the existing divisions into the four
categories [ref:- by implying that vellalas are sudras]. Then by
reason[does this sound unfamiliar?] there arises a stupid question:- Does
this not imply that divisions based on atleast work [as no one can give
conclusive proofs on birth based] did exist in the ancient tamil
civilization before their arrival? - sorry such innervation of your reasoning
power aren't allowed.

Now here is another extract which I had posted sometime back in SCI.

In one of my replies to posts on Hindu scriptures I wrote about four
castes [kudi] mentioned in the tamil bardic poems of sangam age which are
different from present day divisions. Here are some more informations
quoted from "The relationship between tamil and classical sanskirit
literature" by Prof. G.L. Hart of Berkeley.

Quote begins:-
The chief element in the weltanschauung of the tamils was the force which
they called ananku. This power, ....was a potentially dangerous sacred
force which was considered to inhere in any object or person thought to be
especially potent for a number of reasons. Anything in which it inhered had
to be carefully controlled, lest the power go out of control and wreak
havoc. .......
Ofcourse, every society has had its priests, those who keep magic or
spiritual forces in their proper places and invoke them at the proper time.
What distinguishes the tamil guardians of this power is that they
themselves were thought to be dangerous, as they had to possess ananku to
control it elsewhere. Thus they belonged to lower castes.Even today, the
lower castes in south India have special powers for telling the future and
working magic. It is curious that the manipulators of sacred power in
ancient Tamilnad were not all of the same caste, but belonged to different
castes according to the situation under which they dealt with ananku.......
Among the most important of the low castes which dealt with this dangerous
power are the three castes whose occupation had to do with producing oral
literature.....Every morning when the king awoke and symbolically returned
from the other world, a caste called Kinaimakans [those who play the kinai
drums] would stand in front of the gate of his palace and sing his praises,
receiving payment for the service. Another caste, the Panans, would sing
certain types of songs to the king at certain times of day, lending to the
person of the king an aura of fitness. Both the Kinaimagans and the Panans,
along with the third caste, the tutiyans, whose chief function is not
clear, would play their own special drums during battle, by which act they
are actually said to supply the means for the king to cross over the sea of
battle to victory........

it was not only the rites that these oral poets conducted that gave them
their status; it was also their ability to imbue activities with a sacred
fitness, to prevent potential disorder. It is for this reason that there were
three castes of music makers, each with its own function: The lower castes
seem to have been more highly differentiated than the higher castes because
each dealt with sacred power intimately, and each had to have just the
right fitnes to perform its own sacred function properly......

quote ends------

raghavan

P.S: Any mistake in typing is mine. About quote doesnot reflect my
position/thinking on related subjects.