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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ DECEMBER, 1925
In the first pla in are grown the paddy and other grain-eaters'. Kulinga, which is a kind of grain spoken of in the Sanskrit works of medicine. The Aryans in their original home did not know anything of paddy; it is only from the Dravidians in the valley of the Ganges that they got a knowledge of this kind of grain. These Dravidian tribes have been consequently called the Kulingah. In the Mahabharata and in the Purdnas, the word Kalingdh, a modification of Kulingah, is used in the plural.18 This is in accordance with the number, in which the word is used in its native language. nga is the plural termination in the language of the Kuis or Khonda, and is added to words ending in li, ta, ja, da, ga, na, ti, eto. ; nouns expressing a collection are always plural, e.g., hurvi-nga-beans; cheppu-nga -shoes.
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It is from this word kulinga that the people and their language got their name. When the plural ending is taken away kuli remains. If the medial 'l' is taken away, the word becomes k-1, just as paluku becomes pa-klu ; talli becomes td-i.. It is to be observed that, when the medial 'T' is omitted, the vowel in the first syllable is lengthened and the last consonant is doubled. So kuli becomes kú-i; to make the last vowel vocable 'v'is put before it and Ki-vi is the name of a tribe of the same class.
These Ka-is or Kavis were called the Kulingah by the Aryans. The transition of Kulinga to Kalinga in Aryan mouths is reasonable. The name of the people was afterwards applied to the country inhabited by them. In the ancient works of India, there are evidences to prove that the people whom the Aryans called Kulingås or Kalingas had their original home on the banks of the Jumna and the Ganges, and they receded along the Ganges before the Aryans. Thus being driven southwards, they were forced to leave the mouths of the Ganges and settle peacefully in the country along the East Coast. By the time of the war of the Mahabharata, they had established a powerful kingdom there. It is only in the hills bordering this region that these tribes are still found. All this has to be said just to show that the name Kalinga had its origin in the language of the Ka-is.
Thus linga 'in Kalinga has no reference to the phallic representation of Siva. The word is made up of kali and nga. Similarly the 'linga' in Tiriliiga has as much evistence as that in Kalinga. The word is made of Tirili-nga ; the last syllable being the plu terrination. It is used in plural to denote a class of people, and the termination nga is added because the singular ends in li. The meaning of Tirili is now obscure and has to be discovered from the study of its derivatives.
Tirli-ka is a small lamp in dialectical Telugu : ka being a termination meaning 'belonging to.' So tirli, & contraction of tirili, means 'light. If the inedial r or ri is omitted, the word becomes tilli; just as parupu becomes pappu ; nirupu becomes nippu ; chirdku, chikku; tarugu, taggu; moradu, moddu; karugu, kaggu.
Tilli or Tella means 'white, bright' or 'light', its derivative, teli, occurs in teli-navvu (bright smile); teli-ganti (white-eyed); teli-gamu (white planet, Venus). Tella-udre (became pale). The derivatives of this now obsolete word are found in other Dravidian languages also.
Pillai is the vernacular name of Chidambaram, a town between the Vellar and the Coleroon rivers, with its famous ancient temple of Siva.13 The name Chidambaram is made of chit (- wisdom) and ambaram ( - horizon or sky), i.e., & place of wisdom. The vernacular name Tilai also must mean the same thing, but the Tamil grammarians explain that the name was given to the place because there was a grove of lilla trees (excæcaria agallocha); but the place
19 Like some other names of countries, it is usually confined to the plural number (ngd) confounding the place with the peoplo inhabiting it-Mon. WILLIAMS.
18 Manual Administration, Madras Presidency, Vol. IV, page 216.
