Indian Antiquary Vol 23

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 7

JANUARY, 1894.)
THE DEVIL WORSHIP OF THE TULUVAS.
23
136
(4) Koţi and Channaya-pârdanolo (11) Todakinar ... (13) Mudader
149 (14) Attaver Daiongalu ...
159 (19) Jumadi
... ... 239 (25) Kallarti
253 (26) Bobbarye
266 Having thus described the papers in detail, I will now state the steps taken to make them available for those interested in such matters.
Barnell's note at the opening of the volume shewed that the text was probably of great linguistic value, and that it had taken him years to make a collection such as, most likely, can never now be made by another hand. The seclusion in which the Toļuvas live, further makes it probable that they have preserved that devil-worship, on which so much popular Hinduism is everywhere based, in greater purity than it is perhaps preserved anywhere else. It, therefore, seemed to me important to preserve the contents of the MSS. from possible destruction by publishing them, but here difficulties sprang up.
The number of persons of culture, who know anything of the Taļuvas and their language, is necessarily very small, and, unfortunately, althongh all but two stories, viz., No. 21 of one page only, and the last at p. 312 ff. in the MSS., had been translated for the collector, the text, though very clear and admirably written, was in the Kanarese character introduced by the Basel Mission for printing Tula, 11 excepting pp. 123-188 and the proverbs, which were in & plain, though untidy, Malayalam script. It, therefore, became obvious that only a person well acquainted with Tulu would be able to reproduce the text to any practical use. I, therefore, applied in 1886 to the late Rev. A. Männer of the Basel Mission for help, asking him to transliterate any of the stories, which, in his judgment, contained peculiarities of language. Probably all are worth, or will be in time worth, transliterating, but he selected only Nos. 1, 11, 16, 24, 25, and 26 for transliteration. In addition to this work, be very kindly made a number of variants in the trarslations of Burnell's employés, apparently by way of corrections of mistakes, and added an original text and translation on the origin of demons," a long note" on Bhatas," and some long variants of the stories given by Burnell.
The last of Mr. Männer's invaluable contributions was received in 1887, and ever since then I have been looking ont unsuccessfully for a competent editor for the MSS., endowed with the leisure requisite for publishing them in the manner they deserve. At last I have decided to give them to the publio with such explanations, as Burnell's own notes and papers, Mr. Männer's contributions, and such books as are at my command, enable me to make.
As the South Kanara volume of that most excellent series of books, the Madras District Manuals, has not yet been issued, it is, I find, exceedingly difficult to obtain, at first hand, any trustworthy account of the Tuluvae, although the missions at Mangalore and elsewhere are of long standing. Their country occupies the central portion of the South Kanara district, and their language seems to be now spoken by about half a million people.13 Bishop Caldwell, with some hesitation, classes Toļu among the cultivated Dravidian languages, on the ground that, though it was unwritten, until the Basel Mission began to teach the people after 1834 how to write it in Kanarese and Malayalam characters, and to print it in the former, it had been very carefully cultivated by the reciters of poetry and prose; and he remarks frequently on its exceeding interest from the philological point of view. He describes the Tuluvas as the most conservative of the Dravidian peoples, and asserts, that in spite of the want of & written
10 Two illustrations.
11 Männer, Tulu-English Dict. p. iii. 11 Hunter, Gazetteer of India, say, #. v., by 428,292 in 1981, and, .. v. South Kadara, by 180,000 (!). Caldwell, Dravilian Grammar, p. 35, estimated it at 300,000 in 1875.