Pope

an accomplished Dravidian scholar, rejects the derivation of the word Tamil from the Sanskrit Dravida. Before the Moslem conquest the Hindus were said to speak two great languages, Vada-mor i and ‘Tere-mor i— northern” and “southern” speech, representing apparently Sanskrit (Aryan), and Tamil (Dravidian), The Jains, says Mr Pope, fixed the Tamil language; but the northerners—Telagus and Kanarese—gradually adopted Sanskrit words and grammar, which the Malayalams in the south never adopted. The Dravids included Chalukyas, Cheras, and Cholas (see under Chera); but the Sanskrit Dravida, or Dramila, included Mah-rattas, and Gujerat as far as the delta of the Indus. We incline to the supposition that the term Dravid has a western trans-Indian origin (see Capt. M‘Mahon, Jowrnal of Rl. Geographical Socy., April 1897, and remarks by Col. Holdich, R.E., p- 418): “ Dravidian races, driven out of Me so pot am i a... swarmed through this country (Persian Baluchistin) to India, leaving behind them curious records on stone... and a considerable remnant of their people” (see Brihuis). The dark complexion of Dravids is perhaps due to inter-breeding with aboriginal Indian Negritos, which still continues from Central India to Cape Kumari. Such stocks include the Bilis of Ceylon (see Balis), and other great builders of forts and shrines, who used metals, and had chariots and strange weapons unknown to the simple Aryans. Mr Hewitt (Jowrnal of Royal Asiatic Socy., March 1888 and April 1889) regards Dravids and Kolarians as the peoples noticed in the Rig Veda, and Mahabharata, preceding Aryans in India: including the 7 snake kings of Nishadha, the 5 snake races of the Vasuki, Takshaka, Iravata, Kauravya, and Dhritarashtra (see Matsya-Purina), as well as the Bhojas (“cattle herds”) and the Asvaka (“horse breeders”) of Gandhara or Eastern Afghanis tin. He holds that the trade of early Babylonians and Arabs “was probably no le varied and extensive some you sand of years B.c., than it was when the Greeks visited India; and that this trade implied the existence in India of a civilised and well governed population who, on the W. coast, spoke, fe long before the advent of the Aryans, a language allied to the Tamil.” These pre-Aryan Dravids seem to have po e ed the old Akkadian lunar calendar, and the solar lunar calendar of the Semitic race: while the 33 gods of Hindu mythology are connected with those of Akkadians; and the 27 fortnightly stations of the moon, with the 6 snake gods (the moon and five planets) make up this number. Prof. G. 588