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JULY, 1913.)
KUMARILA'S ACQUAINTANCE WITH TAMIL
201
Tamilians)." He remarks that Andhra-Dravida-bhdshd was Kumarila's name for the " Dravidian family of languages and translates the same word in page 284 by " the speech of the Andhras and the Dravidas" (shortening dravida into Dravidas, it is not known why). The singular suffix is explained by Dr. Konow as denoting "a difference of dialect, which is by no means certain," and, if true, he adds that the “ Kanarese and Tamil would be included in the dravidabhdshd, as against Telugu, the andhrabhasha." All this is wasted ingenuity, for both in the printed text of the Tantra-Varttika and in the MS. copy (in Telugu script) used by Dr. Ganganath Jha, the translator of the Tantra-Varttika, the reading is atha drávidadibháshdydm.
The whole passage as printed by Barnell, is full of errors and unauthorized alterations by a Tamil copyist; I therefore transcribe it below:
Tad-yatha, Drdvidadi-bhd shayam-eva tdvad-vyañjandnta-bhashd-padeshu svaranta-vibhaktistri-pratyay ddi-lalpandbhiḥ sva-bhdshdnurdpan-arthan pratipadyamdndh drisyante. Tad-yatha, odanam chor ity-ukte chora-pada-vdohyam kalpayanti, Panthanam atar ity-ulete atara iti kalpayitud dhuḥ,“ Satyam, dustaratvät, atara eva pantha," iti. Tatha pdp-sabdam pakdrantam sarpa-vachanam ; akdrántam kalpayitpd, "Satyam, på pa eva asau." iti vadants. Evam mal-sabdam stri-vachanam mala iti kalpayitvd," Satyam," iti dhuh. Vair-sabdam cha rephintam udara-vachanam vasri-sabdena pratyámndyam vadanti, " Satyam, sarvasya Ishudhitasya akdrye pravartandt udaram vairi-karye pravartate," sti. Tad-yadd Dravid ddi-bhashayam fdpiši svachchhandakalpand tada Parasi-Barbara-Yavana-Raumakadi-bhashásu kim vikalpya kim pratipatsyante iti ng vidmah.
The passage occurs in Kumârila's discussion of Mimdinod-sdtra I. üi. 9 choditam tu pratiyeta avirodhát pramanena. This sdtra ordains that words borrowed from mlechchha languages and used in the Veda, ought to be understood in the sense they have in the mlechchha languages and not to be ascribed new meanings based on the Nirukta. Sabara gives four such words in illastration, pila, cuckoo ; nema, half; támarasa, lotus and sata, a hundred-holed, round, wooden bowl-these words, having been borrowed, according to Mimáinsa tradition, by the Vedic Rishis from mlechchha tongues. Discussing this question further, Kumârila uses the opportunity for airing his knowledge of five words from the Mlechchha tongue, Tamil, which he, no doubt, had casually picked up from some Tamil man. So he says that when the Argas hear mlechchha words, they add to or drop from them some sounds and make them resemble Sanskrit words, though not necessarily of the same import. "Thus in the Drâvida, etc., language, where words end in a consonant, ( the Aryas) add a vowel, a case inflection, or a feminine suffix and make them resemble significant words of their own language. Thus when food is called chor, they tarn it into chora; when a road is called atar, they turn it into atara and say, 'true, a road is atara, because it is dustara, difficult to cross'. Thus they add a to the word pd pending in p and meaning a snake, and say, true, it is a sinful being. They turn the word mal meaning a woman into mdia, and say, it is so.' They substitute the word vairiin place of the word vair, ending in and meaning stomach, and say, 'yes, as all hungry people do wrong deeds, the stomach undertakes to do wrong (vairt) actions. When guch changes are freely made in the Drávida, etc., language, what changes can be made in Persian Barbara, Greek, Latin and other languages, and what words can be got thereby, I do not know."
It is to be noted that Kumârila misquotes four of the five Tamil words he gives. Three out of the five do not in Tamil end in a consonant, but in u, and Kumarila clips the final short vowel as North Indians do in speaking Sanskrit words and imagines his mutilated form to be the Tamil form. Besides he drops the nasal of the word for snake, perhaps for fitting the word to the point to be illustrated. The Tamil words are chou more properly koru, pambu, vayiru, the final vowel in each case being u made with the lips unrounded. By the word Mal, said to mean woman. Kumârila perhaps means Tamil ammal, woman. Perhaps he heard women called Stammd!, Mangammál, etc., and broke them ap into Sita+mdl, Manga+mal and thus arrived at the word mál. The only word Kumârila quotes correctly is atar, more properly, adar, 8 word not now used in Tamil speech, so far as I know, except perhaps in some dialect unknown to me. From a Tamil dictionary, I learn, it means way,' and adarkol means bighway robbery. It is curious that the cnly word Kumârila gives in a correct form is an obsolete word.
The misreadings of Bornell's copy are also interesting. The copyist was, no doubt, a Tamil man for, not knowing the word atar, he boldly substituted nadai, and has thus turned the remark about atara into nonsense, and not being able to trace Kumarila's mal, he changed it into el, a man.
I am not able to explain the ddt in Kumarila's Drávidadi-bhdsha. Probably it is an expletive meaning nothing.
