Thus Spake the Divine - About Dravida

Thus Spake the Divine

About Dravida

Dravida means Tamil – Ta+mi+l. The fi rst syllable “Ta” has become “Dra”. It is customary to add syllables “ra” to words in Sanskrit. If you look at the verse given earlier in the salutation of Acharyas, you will see the “Totaka” spelt as “Throdaka”. Some Sanskrit fanatics even go to the extent of adding “ra” to every word. They spell “Deham” (meaning body in Tamil) as “Dreham”! The second syllable ‘mi’ has become “vi”. Philologists will provide lots of examples for swapping of syllables “ma” and “va” in Sanskrit. “Shalagravam” has become “Shalagramam”. Mandodari in Sanskrit has become “Vandodari” in Tamil. Even Dravida becomes Dramida sometimes! The last syllable “l” (actually it is ‘zh’ in Tamil, which is not found in any other language!) turns to “d”. So, “Ta+mi+l becomes “Dra”vi”d”!

Nowadays, people are happy when there is a flavour of Tamil added to every subject. That is why I also thought of adding some fl avour of Tamil while speaking about Dravidacharya too! Even Bhagavadpada, in his 75th verse of Saundaryalahari, has used the term “Dravida” when speaking to Ambal. He has said “You have breast-fed the ‘Dravida’ child”. Here, Dravida child is Jnyanasambandar, the Tamil saint.

When I say Tamil and Dravida are identical, please do not misconstrue and bring in the race confl ict between Aryans and Dravidians! There is absolutely no clue at all in Veda about any such classifi cation! It is only the British who have brought in that classifi cation, which was in accordance with their divide-and-rule policy. “Arya” means “respectable”.

That’s all. There is no such class as “Arya” at all. Even when Krishna speaks to Arjuna in Bhagavad Gita, He says, “Why have you lost your confi dence and become such a coward “Unarya”? Here, Unarya means one who is not an Arya, who has turned “unrespectable”. (Even in English, the prefi x “un’ brings the antonym of the adjectives, for example, happy and unhappy). Lord Krishna is sad about Arjuna becoming ‘disrespectful’ through his cowardly behaviour in the war fi eld. Sita calls Rama as “Arya Putra”, which means ‘the most respectful citizen’.

It has nothing to do with Dravidian-Aryan race classifi cation. Dravida itself does not mean any race. People in India were all united as one race. For convenience, they were divided into two broad segments based on the geographical locations they lived in. People living in north, up of Vindhya mountains (Gauda Desham) were called Gaudas and people living down South of Vindhyas were called Dravidians (Dravida Desham). The division was only geographical not racial.

These two sects were further divided into fi ve sub-sects each. They were called Pancha Gaudas and Pancha Dravidas (Pancha means fi ve in Tamil). The divisions of Gauda Desham were: Sarasvatas living in Kashmir, Kanyakupjas living in Punjab, Mythilas living in Bihar, Udkalas living in Orissa and people living in the extreme east were not given any name but just called Gaudas.

Similarly, people living in the Dravida Desham were also divided into fi ve sects, namely, Gujarati, Maharashtrians, Andhra, Karnataka and people in the southern most region of Tamil Nadu were not given any name and were called Dravidians. The reason for not including people living in Kerala was that Malayalam language came to be known as a separate language only within the last thousand years.

Prior to that, it was also a part of Tamil Desham. Therefore, Dravida and Arya are not two different sects. There are 10 sub-sects based on geographical locations but they all belong to one race. Today, Gaudas are the residents of Bengal. Krishna Chaitanya belongs to the Bengal region and that is why His Mutt is known as Gaudiya Mutt. Similarly, Dravidian refers to Tamil-speaking people. There is one unique aspect in this regard. It is only in Tamil Nadu and Bengal that the British culture spread rampantly.

It is only people from these two regions who went on to serve the English Government across India. When a person migrates from one place to another, he will be identifi ed only by the latter region. Today, in Maharashtra, you can hear the surname of many people as “Telang”. The ancestors of these people migrated from Andhra Pradesh and settled in Maharashtra. Telugu is the language of Andhra Pradesh and the same has got distorted as Telang. Similarly, there are people whose surname is Dravid in places like Kashi up North in India.

These are the ones who migrated long back from down South and settled in those regions.

One important point to be noted here is that all people having the surname Dravid belong to Brahmin community! If you go by the race theory, Brahmins are totally against Dravidians. Rather, you can say there is enmity even among Brahmins. But, in reality, in the Northern region, the surname of Dravid belongs only to the Brahmins living there.

So, this strongly indicates that Dravida indicates geographic location alone and not any racial classifi cation. I actually wanted to talk about Dravidacharya but have made a long-twined story! Anyway, Dravidacharya was an Advaita Preceptor who lived prior to our Acharya. In the coming chapter, we will see how Dravidacharya connects with the story I narrated earlier.

This article is a snippet from the Book Thus Spake the Divine, is available online at www.giri.in and across Giri Trading Agency Private Limited, A chain of Speciality Stores dealing in all kinds of products needed in Indian Culture and Tradition.