Madhuvidya

Author(s): S D Laddu, T N Dharmadhikari, Madhvi Kolhatkar, Pratibha Pingle
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 672

Reviews
DRAVIDIAN THEORIES: by R. Swaminatha Aiyar, The Madras Law Journal Office, Madras 600 004, 1975, pp. xlvii, 574, Price : Rs. 30/
289
The contents of this book formed originally the subject of a series of lectures delivered by Shri Aiyar over sixty years ago to a selected audience. These were subsequently serially published in 1922-23 in The Tamilian's Friend, the Journal of The Tamil Education Society, Madras. Shri Aiyar thereafter continued his research in the subject and wrote a number of articles and delivered several lectures. In the light of this new material Shri Aiyar revised his original lectures with a view to publishing them in a book form.1 But before the book could be published the author, unfortunately, passed away. Realizing, however, the importance of the work the officers of the Madras Law Journal decided to publish Shri Aiyar's book although it meant a good deal of labour. Some difficulties arose even after the printing was started, but they were got over and the book finally appeared to the delight of all interested in understanding the relationship of the Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian Languages.
There was a time, says the author, when it was believed that the Dravidian languages had sprung from Sanskrit. This theory was rightly given up when Bishop Caldwell's monumental Comparative Grammar of Dravidian Languages revealed a grammatical structure of these languages quite different from that of Sanskrit. But, the author complains, now some scholars have gone to the other extreme and have formulated a theory according to which the Dravidian languages exercised a profound influence on the grammatical structures of the Indo-Aryan languages including Sanskrit. This theory implies that the Dravidian languages were fully developed before the advent of the Sanskrit speakers into India and that they were spoken all over
the north.
The author believes that in his research he has tried to avoid the two extremes and has struck the middle path; but, in reality, he too has taken up a position which, although not identical with the erstwhile theory, is very much close to it.
"The aim of the present book" the author states "is to secure a reconsideration of the current theory of Dravidian languages on the ground that the theory is based on a misapprehension of the real facts of the situation, and is supported by assumptions some of which can be easily disproved" (p.
1 P. N. Appuswami in his A Note on the Book, p. iv, does not give the date of this
revision.
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