Indian Antiquary Vol 46

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

Page 36

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[FEBRUARY, 1917 - P. attai, boils : cf. Dr. ad, to cook, past part. atta. 21. P. ghufaidrinks.' cf. Tel. gutu (ku) a gulp,' Brahui gut, 'throat.' 22. P. rampai, ramphai, 'cuts.' cf. Tel. rampamu, a saw.' 23. P. kavi 'blue colour.' Cf. Dr. kavi, red ochre.'
Since the above words are considered by Hemachandra to be provincialismis which were in use from times immemorial, we may say that those words were borrowed long before his time. It is not, however, possible to say at what periods the different words were borrowed, as the materials I have collected till now are too scanty. Of course, there can be no doubt that the Aryans at one time lived in very close contact and freely mixed with the Dravidians, as is evident from the words mentioned above. This intermingling of people speaking Dravidian and Aryan vernaculars has occurred even in more recent times. Several Dravidian families have gone and settled permanently in Benares, the Bombay Presidency and even Kashmir, and intermarried with people speaking the Aryan vernaculars. We may therefore, expect to find a few Dravidian words in the languages of Northern India on account of this immigration. It may, after all, be that the Dravidian languages spoken by these people have not had any effect upon the Aryan vernaculars, just as the Marathâ language spoken in Tanjore and other parts of Southern India by settlers from the Maratha country and the Gujarati (Patnůli dialect and that by the Marwârîs) have had no influence on the Dravidian languages.
THE HISTORY OF THE NAIK KINGDOM OF MADURA BY V. RANGACHARI, M.A., L.T., MADRAS.
(Continued front p. 28.) If the theory of apostacy and murder is incredible, that of love intrigue is equally so. To believe that a king who had, in his harem, more than 200 wives, 54 the picked beauties of his kingdom, and who was already far in the decline of life, being more than 65 years old at the time of the alleged intrigue, was engaged in it, and underwent a vile and miserable death in the backyard of a poor man's house, alone and in the dark, demands an absurd amount of credulity as well as the sacrifice of commonsense. All that we can say is that Tirumal Naik must have died such a sudden death as to give rise to surprise and suspicion on the part of the populace and the concoction of plausible theories on the part of his servants. The early life of the Naik ruler had not been adorned by temperance, and a sudden indisposition probably proved fatal.
NOTE. Wheeler (History Vol. IV. Part II, pp. 576-581) gives some curious information concerning Tirumal Ntik. He says that Tirumal Naik came to the throne on Feb. 9, 1626. The very next day after his coronation, Tirumal received the Tanjore ambassador and agreed to give Vallam in exchange for Trichinopoly, 50 if Vijaya Ranganatha would give his sister Pårva i to him in marriage. Wheeler then gives a description of the royal marriage, which was exactly the same as that at the present day. Three days after this marriage. Aryanatha died. His funeral was performed with great splendour, and the
54 The Jesuit letters say that he had 200 wives and the most distinguishod of these committed sati on his death. See Madura Gatr., p. 48.
This is abeurd, for we have already seen that Vallam was exchanged for Trichinopoly in the time of the first Visvanatha.
68 This is also abeurd. Aryanatha really died in 1600, 23 years before Tirumal's accession,