Dravidian race
The Dravidian Race is the name sometimes still given to the peoples of southern and central India and northern Sri Lanka who speak Dravidian languages. The term was first used in this sense by
Max Muller, who gave a new interpretation to the ancient Sanskrit texts.
However, other historians have put forth theories that there is no significant ethnic or racial distinction between northern
Indians and southern Indians.
The Dravidian languages are grouped into Northern, Central and Southern categories. The Northern is mainly Brahui which is spoken in Northern or North Western Pakistan. The southern is the most active and mainly consists of the languages Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam. Kannada and Telugu, in particular, have seen a great penetration by
Sanskrit, and Tamil is the least effected.
These languages are called Dravidian for purely linguistic reasons; the peoples who use them are of varying racial types.
Some believe that Dravidian-speaking peoples may have been spread throughout the Indian subcontinent before the Aryans settled much of
India. The early Indus Valley civilization (Harappan and Mohenjo Daro) is presumed to have been Dravidian. A theory which is controversial
now, suggests that they were then forced southwards by the invasion of the Aryans.
Into the 21st century, Indians, with possible justification, continue to accuse the British Raj for exaggerating differences between northern and southern
Indians, beyond actual anthropological differences, to help sustain their
control of India. The British Raj ended in 1947. Yet all discussion of Aryan or
Dravidian "races" remains highly controversial in India.
Some modern theories of the origins of both Hinduism and Buddhism focus on the resultant mixture of the "Aryan" and "Dravidian" cultures.
According to Tamil Tradition, the Dravidians originally came from a submerged island Kumarikhandam in the south of India. The Epics Shilappadikaram and Manimekhalai describe the submerged city of Puhar.
At Mahabalipuram, near Chennai, submerged ruins have been found in the ocean.
Herodotus, Homer and other greek
authors called the Dravidians the Eastern Ethiopians. Greek
writers sometimes identified the Aethiopians of Egypt with the Eastern Aethiopians. Also the Egyptian and Indian geography were
sometimes compared or identified: Arrian (vi. i.) mentions that the Indus River was thought by some ancient Greeks to be the
source of the Nile.
Herodotus wrote about the Dravidians: They differed in nothing from the
other Ethiopians, save in their language, and the character of their hair. For the Eastern Ethiopians have straight hair, while they of Libya are more woolly-haired than any
other people in the world. (Herodotus: from The History of the Persian Wars, VII.70., c.430 BCE)
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky also speaks of the
Eastern Ethiopians or Dravidians. She thought that they may have
played a role in the history of Ancient Egypt and described many parallels between
Egypt and India in her works.
Gottfried de Purucker remarked: A highly advanced
urban civilization of Mohenjo Daro has been discovered on the Indus "between Attock and Sind," exactly the location mentioned in The Secret Doctrine as the abode of the Aethiopians.(Encyclopedic
Theosophical Glossary)
See also
Aryan Invasion Theory
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