Indian Antiquary Vol 41

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 236

232
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[OCTOBER, 1912,
naturally clung to the highlands and peopled the skirts of the present province of Mysore, the districts of Malabar, Coimbatore and Madura, and spread out towards the west coast as far as Magadi, which Mr. Venkayya identifies with Vérgi, the Ohera capital, and considers it as lying near the modern Cranganore in Malabar. One section of them were called all. wami (HEHE) from the 8000 lund wbich they occupied-being perhaps the same as the Ashtngram division of Mysore. Another section, the Molagu, I am unable to identify : they may be the settlers in the dry districts of Bellary and Anantapur. At the time when these settlements were made, Kannada does not seem to have distinguished itself from Telugu or Tamil. Throughout the period of time when the Kongu kings ruled, the language seems to have been Tamil and the literature of the period belongs to the Chera kingdom with the capital at Vêngi, 1.e., Cranganore, on the west coast. It was only during the rule of the Obáluk yas and the Yadavas of Devagiri that Kannada became a separate tongue by differentiation from Telugu on the one hand and Tamil on the other.
Moreover, of this twelve years' famine, which seems to have led to the great southward movement from the north, wo have evidence of a peculiar kind, in one of the stories of the Pancha-Tantra. The whole story seems to be a satire on the leadership of the Jaina guru Bhadrabahu, who led the colonists southward only to expose them to sufferings of various kinds, among which may be included starvation and death, voluntarily sought by some in the orthodox Jaina fashion which is technically called . For we read in the Sravana Begola inscriptions how troops of his followers exposed themselves to slow death by starvation on the bare hill in that place. It is exactly like the crane decoying the fish away in the story only to expose them on a bare rock. There seems to have occurred many such prolonged droughts in the past, daring one of which the sage Visvamitra and his family are represented as helped to bits of beef by Tribanku, who had become a Chandala by reason of his sins. The Chhandogyopanishad also makes mention of a famine caused by drought in the land of the Kurus. But these famines do not seem to have led to any great emigration to the south.
But from all these we must not conclude that prior to this period there were no Brahmaņas at all in the sonth. Tamil literature of the 3rd Sangham period, which we must take ag referring to the period between the 1st century, B. C. and 1st century A, D. (because Gajabahu of Ceylon, who is represented as a contemporary of the author of one of the classics of that period, viz., Silannadhikarm, is known from the Mahavainsa to have ruled towards the end of the 2nd century B. C.), bears ample traces of Samskpit influence upon itself and upon its language. Nay, Tamil tradition makes Agastya, one of the Aryan sages, the founder of its language and literature. meaning thereby that he was the first to systematise the language. There is a tradition among the Aryans that this Agastya crossed the Vindhyas and went to the south, and there is also an answering tradition among the Tamils that he did come among them and became the father of their literature.
(To be continued.) DANDIN, THE NYASAK ARA, AND BHAMAHA.
BY PROF. K. B. PATHAK, B.A.; POONA. Mr. Kane has contributed a paper on Nyasakâra, Vamana and Magha to the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, for 1909, p. 94. In this paper he says: "The Harshacharity clearly alludes to the Nysa in the expression auparer: as the commentator Saiikara, who appears to be an early writer, explains कृतगुरुपदन्यासाः ॥ कृत अभ्यस्तो गुरुपर Para at ga y #: Sriharshacharita, chap. III, p. 96, Nirnaya, let Edition." Ou looking into the Nirnayasagara Edition of this work I find the reading to be not great but
Tri. Dr. Führer's most valuable and critical edition of the Harshacharita, based on many manuscripts, also reads, on p. 133, Furet gradaria: It is evident, therefore, that Mr. Kane