Middle India Tuppa Tamil Tuppu And Region Of Origin Of Some Svetambara Jaina Texts

SR No.: 269432
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Herman Tiken
Publisher: Herman Tiken
Total Pages: 15
Language: English
Classification: Article
File Size: 2 MB

Page 11

Middle-Indic tuppa
425
Yet another possibility is to interpret tuvar as meaning "hostility” and to translate the phrase in question as “the hostility which is tuppu-red”. However, the meaning "hostility" (Tamil pakai) is attested only in Akarāti Nikanțu, a lexicon (see TL, p. 1992), and may well be the result of an attempt to account for tuvar in the passage under consideration.
7. Besides Tamil (DED 2686), tuppu is found in Telugu (DED 2747, t(r)uppu "rust") and in Tuļu (DED 2931, tāpu "red"). This distribution suggests that we have to do with a native South Indian, or Dravidian, word. Its occurrence in the Sattasaī may be explained with reference to the close connections the Sātavāhanas entertained with South India (see Dirks 1976: 128-29). It should be noted that tuppa, as a loanword from the South Indian languages, is not unique in the Sattasai. Another instance is sippi in samkhasippi (Sattasai 4). The latter compound consists of a Dravidian word, sippi (DED 2089), which is glossed by the regular Sanskrit word, samkha: "a sippi, that is a 'conch”” (see Tieken 1994: 235). As already pointed out above, vannagghaatuppamuhi may be analysed similarly: "with a face with tuppa, that is, with coloured ghee”.
Apparently, tuppa (the substance and/or the word) travelled northwards via the western part of the Deccan. In this situation it is tempting to conclude that Vivāgasuya as we now have it, that is with the passages discussed above, hails from Gujarat, an area which was in close contact with Maharashtra.16 At the same time the present text of Vivāgasuya, and with it that of Panhāvāgaraņa, which copied and embellished the Vivāgasuya passage, and misunderstood tuppa in the process, would be only slightly older than the Sattasai, if not later. In this connection it should be noted that these conclusions regarding place of origin and date by themselves need not cause a surprise as the Jaina tradition itself sets the redaction of the presently available canon approximately one thousand years after Mahāvīra's death in Valabhi in Kathiawar (Gujarat). Rather, the real issue seems to be whether Vivāgasuya is a late, western redaction of an earlier, eastern text or is as a whole a late text written in Gujarat. The present study of the word tuppa does not by itself carry enough weight to answer this question. On the other hand, I venture to doubt that the occurrence of so-called archaic Ardha Māgadhi, that is, eastern, features in Vivāgasuya can be construed as an argument against the latter
Śmgāraprakāśa (Vol. II, p. 489 (1231). Venika seems to refer here to a twisted piece of cloth used as a sanitary napkin; cp. MW s.v. venika "a twisted stripe or band" with reference to Sufrutas amhita, cp. also the expression viunāvedhiajahanatthala ih Sattasai 289 and 504, and viunāvedho niambassa in 504 (v.11.).
16. Another Dravidian" word showing the same geographical distribution is tuvar(a), which is found in Tamil, Malayāļam, Kannada, Telugu and Kui (DED 2755, 2756), and in Marāțhi, Gujarāti and Kumauni (CDIAL 5890). The spread of tuppa "ghee (Tamil, Kannada, Marāthi and Gujarati), which matches that of tuppa "red colour", is of course a different matter, having to do with the histories of the respective literary languages.