Indian Antiquary Vol 59

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 230

212
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
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[NOVEMBER, 1930
this. They speak vaguely of India south of the Vindhyas as "South India," regardless of the distinction between tho Deocan Plateau and the Eastern and Western Coastal Plains. They speak loosely of “Madras" without discriminating the essentially different cul. tures of the Malayali, Kanarese, Telugu and Tamil nations. They fail to appreciate the fact that "Mysore” is made up of more than one geographical area, and seem unaware that many districts, 6.9., Coimbatore, Salem, N. Arcot, comprise bits of several diverse geographical units. They ignore the distinction between North and South Malabar, North and South Travancore, the Tulu country and West Coast Kannada.
Anyone with a first-hand knowledge of the castes and tribes of South India must realise the vital importance of exactitude as to locality in recording the results of investigations. Failure in this vitiates the value of a very high proportion of the anthropological material at our disposal. The term “NAyars," for instance, includes such a multitude of distinct communities that it is meaningless to speak of a “Nayar oustom” without noting not only the class of Nayar but also the nadu and even the villages to which that custom appertains. The term "Vellalar” is even vaguer. There is no such thing as a "VellAlar" custom; so distinct, for instance, are the Kongu Vellaļars of Coimbatore from the Tondaimandalam Ve!!!ars of Chingleput, and each of these communities from the Karaikattu Vella!ars of Tinnevelly that it would be diffioult to justify the treatment of these three communities as members of one and the name social group, except only that they share a common name and are alike in economio and social status. Again, Kapus and Kammas spread from the Northern Circars and Hyderabad southward to Cape Comorin. How far those sections of these Telugu communi. ties which have penetrated into the Tamil country have been influenced, if at all, by their Tamil environment can only be ascertained by a careful search for variations in oustom in the different geographical areas in which they reside. The "Discipline of Geography " is, in short, the surest safeguard against confusion.
II. Geographical Factors. A. The physical factors which condition human existence may be roughly grouped under the three heads-(a) Configuration, (b) Climate and (c) Economio Products. These factors are closely interdependent one on the other, but no one of them taken singly can be used to demarcate areas of human culture. Land surface elevation, for instance, the "orographical map," is of importance to the anthropologist, but the lowlands include desert and swamp as well as fat delta, and the uplands may be a sanitarium or a death trap. Rain in excess is as injurious to human subsistence as rainlessness, and man can thrive as thickly in the comparatively dry areas of Tanjore and South Travancore as on the wetter coast of Malabar. Iron ores are of little use if fuel and labour cannot be had to melt them. In short, physical factors taken collectively form a variety of complexes, some of which are favourable and some are deleterious to the development of human culture, and the complexes them. selves may be profoundly modified by human art, particularly, in India, by the art of irrigation.
B. These complexes find their expression in the distribution of "human phenomena," e.g. (a) Density of Population, (6) Race, (c) Language, (d) Religion, (6) Political and Administrative Divisions. But the boundaries of these phenomena do not coincide. One race may speak several languages, one language may be spoken by several races; religion transcends the limits of race and language, and a state or nation may comprise many races, languages and religions.
Can a common multiple be found for all these variable factors, human and physical? I think it can,-in Density of Population.
III. Areas and Avenues.
A. BASIS FOR CLASSIFICATION. Attention has in recent years been concentrated on routes, -routes of migration and routes of trade. But routes are but a means to an end and the end ultimately is, almost