The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c14.s1.t7.26

c14.s1.t7.26

Again, on the Dravidian-Megalith equation of Prof. Haimendorf one wonders whether the present distribution of the Dravidian languages and our current inadequate knowledge of the distribution of megaliths, justifies inferences from ethnology and philology.¹ We need not be taken in, either by Wheeler's dramatic parallel of the city Ootacamund and the Toda hills for the contrast between the Neolithic and the Megalithic cultures, or by Haimendorf's question : "if the Megalithic builders did not speak Dravidian, what language did they speak". We can certainly plead for a little more patience. On the question of language of the Megalith builders, we do not know anything at present. *They must certainly have spoken the Dravidian languages, but the more controversial point raised by Prof. Haimendorf, is whether they introduced these languages or not.* Earlier, Heine Geldern doubted it. Besides this raises grave problems which can only be solved by the linguists. If, as is believed, the Dravidian languages and culture influenced the Aryan from the beginning, this late chronology conflicts with these suggestions.² As a general principle, it may be stated, that the adoption of certain aspects of a higher culture need not necessarily imply the adoption of the language. The very survival of the Dravidian languages in India is an obvious answer to Prof. Haimendorf's query.