History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c8.s2: Dravidians.
History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c8.s2
- Language
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Dravidians.
v1.c8.s2.1
Although, therefore, as was hinted above, there might be no great difficulty in recovering the main incidents and leading features of the history of the Aryans, from their first entry into India till they were entirely absorbed into the mass of the population some time before the Christian Era, there could be no greater mistake than to suppose that their history would fully represent the ancient history of the country. The Dravidians are a people who, in historical times, seem to have been probably as numerous as the pure Aryans, and at the present day form one-fifth of the whole population of India. They belong, it is true, to a lower intellectual status than the Aryans, but they have preserved their nationality pure and unmixed, and, such as they were at the dawn of history, so they seem to be now.
v1.c8.s2.2
Their settlement in India extends to such remote pre-historic times, that we cannot feel even sure that we should regard them as immigrants, or, at least, as either conquerors or colonists on a large scale, but rather as aboriginal in the sense in which that term is usually understood. Generally it is assumed that they entered India across the Lower Indus, leaving the cognate Brahui in Baluchistân as a mark of the road by which they came, and, as the affinities of their language seem to be with the Ugrians and Northern Turanian tongues, this view seems probable.¹ But they have certainly left no trace of their migrations anywhere between the Indus and the Narbadâ, and all the facts of their history, so far as they are known, would seem to lead to an opposite conclusion. The hypothesis that would represent what we know of their history most correctly would place their original seat in the extreme south, somewhere probably not far from Madurâ or Tanjor, and thence spreading fan-like towards the north, till they met the Aryans in the northern Dekhan. The question, again, is not of much importance for our present purposes, as we do not know to what degree of civilisation they had reached anterior to the Christian Era, or when they were first able to practise the arts of civilised life with such success as to bring them within the scope of a work devoted to the history of art.¹
v1.c8.s2.3
¹ Dr. Caldwell, the author of the 'Dravidian Grammar,' is the greatest and most trustworthy advocate of this view.
v1.c8.s2.4
¹ In the 'Râmâyana' the monkey-soldiers are directed to the countries of the Andhras, Pândyas, Cholas, and Keralas, in the south, and are told they will there see the gate of the city of the Pândyas adorned with gold and jewels.
v1.c8.s2.5
It may be that at some future period, when we know more of the ancient arts of these Dravidians than we now do, some fresh light may be thrown on this very obscure part of history. Geographically, however, one thing seems tolerably clear. *If* the Dravidians came into India in historical times it was not from Central Asia that they migrated, but from Persia, or some southern region of the Asiatic continent.
Linked texts (1)
- Vālmīkirāmāyaṇa — Vālmīki, Sanskrit