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{{Short description|South Asian ethnolinguistic group}}
{{mergefrom|Dravidas}}
{{Other uses|Dravidian (disambiguation)}}
{{pp-semi-indef}}
{{EngvarB|date=September 2020}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2020}}
{{Infobox language family
|name = Dravidians
|region = ] and parts of ], mainly ] and ]
|familycolor = Dravidian
|family = One of the world's primary ]
|protoname = ]
|child1 = Northern
|child2 = Central
|child3 = Southern
|iso2 = dra
|iso5 = dra
|lingua = 49 = (phylozone)
|glotto = drav1251
|glottorefname = Dravidian
|map = Dravidian subgroups.png
|mapcaption = Distribution of subgroups of Dravidian languages:<br />{{col-begin}}
{{col-2}}
{{legend|#42f542|Northern}}
{{legend|#F0E68C|Central}}
{{col-2}}
{{legend|#F5B342|South-Central}}
{{legend|#FF0000|Southern}}
{{col-end}}}}


{{Infobox ethnic group
The terms '''Dravidians''' and '''Dravidian Race''' are sometimes given to the peoples of southern and central ] and northern ] who speak ], the best known of which are ] (&#2980;&#2990;&#3007;&#2996;&#3021;), ] (&#3108;&#3142;&#3122;&#3137;&#3095;&#3137;), ] (ಕನ್ನಡ),](&#3374;&#3378;&#3375;&#3390;&#3379;&#3330;) and ](ತುಳು).
| caption = Dravidian speakers in South Asia
| group = Dravidian people
| image = Dravidian map.svg
| pop = approx. '''250 million'''
| languages = ]
| religions = Predominantly ], ] and others: ], ], ], ], ]
| related =
| native_name =
| native_name_lang =
}}
{{Dravidian}}


The '''Dravidian peoples''', '''Dravidian-speakers''' or '''Dravidians''', are a collection of ]s native to ] who speak ]. There are around 250 million native speakers of Dravidian languages.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315722580 |title=The Dravidian languages |publisher=Routledge |year=2019 |isbn=9781315722580 |editor-last=Steever |editor-first=S.B. |edition=2nd |pages=1|doi=10.4324/9781315722580 |s2cid=261720917 }}</ref> Dravidian speakers form the majority of the population of ] and are natively found in ], ], ],<ref name="LouisSteever2015">{{cite book |last1=Louis |first1=Rosenblatt |author-link1=Rosenblatt Louis |last2=Steever |first2=Sanford B. |title=The Dravidian Languages |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n2DxBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA388 |access-date=18 October 2016 |date=15 April 2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-91164-4 |page=388}}</ref> ],<ref name= karim>{{cite journal|author= Razaul Karim Faquire|title= Language situation in Bangladesh|journal= The Dhaka University Studies|url= https://www.academia.edu/3788700|volume= 67|issue= 2|pages= 7|year= 2010|issn= 1562-7195|oclc= 11674036}}</ref> the ], ], ]{{cn|date=December 2024}} and ].<ref name="SwanSmith2001">{{cite book |last1=Swan |first1=Michael |author-link1=Michael Swan (writer) |last2=Smith |first2=Bernard |author-link2=Bernard Smith (art historian) |title=Learner English: A Teacher's Guide to Interference and Other Problems |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6UIuWj9fQfQC&pg=PA227 |access-date=18 October 2016 |date=26 April 2001 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-521-77939-5 |page=227}}</ref> Dravidian peoples are also present in ], ], ], ], ], ], ], the ], and the ] through ].
==Ethnology==
The term arose from assumptions by nineteenth century Western scholars that Dravidian speakers were earlier inhabitants of India than the speakers of the ] languages in the north of the country. It was supposed that the generally darker-skinned Dravidians constituted a distinct ]. This notion corresponded to ] of the time according to which darker skinned peoples were more primitive than light-skinned ]. Accordingly, Dravidians were envisaged as primitive early inhabitants of India who had been partially displaced and subordinated by more advanced ]. The term Dravidian is taken from the ] "drāvida", meaning "Southern". Thus the name itself is Indo-Aryan, and is not derived from any Dravidian language. It was adopted following the publication of ]'s ''Comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages'' (1856), which established it as one of the major language groups of the world.


] may have been spoken in the Indus civilization, suggesting a "tentative date of Proto-Dravidian around the early part of the third millennium BCE",{{sfn|Krishnamurti|2003|p=501}} after which it branched into various Dravidian languages.<ref name="books.google.com"> p.234, Department of Ancient History, Culture, and Archaeology, University of Allahabad</ref> South Dravidian I (including pre-]) and South Dravidian II (including pre-]) split around the eleventh century BCE, with the other major branches splitting off at around the same time.{{sfn|Krishnamurti|2003|p=501–502}}
This concept has affected thinking in India about racial and regional differences and has informed aspects of ] nationalism, which has at times appropriated the claim that Dravidians are the earliest inhabitants of India in order to argue that other populations were oppressive interlopers from which Dravidians should liberate themselves. The discovery of the ] in the 1920s, which was attributed to the displaced Dravidians of the north, further fuelled such Dravidianist ideas since it implied that the Indo-Aryans were uncivilised barbarians rather than a "superior race".


The origins of the Dravidians are a "very complex subject of research and debate".<ref name="Tudu2008_p.4002">{{harvnb|Tudu|2008|p=400}}</ref> They are regarded as indigenous to the ],<ref name="Avari_p132">{{cite book |last=Avari |first=Burjor |url=https://archive.org/details/indiaancientpast1200avar |title=Ancient India: A History of the Indian Sub-Continent from C. 7000 BC to AD 1200 |publisher=Routledge |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-134-25162-9 |page= |url-access=limited}}</ref><ref name="Masica_p392">{{cite book |last=Masica |first=Colin P. |title=The Indo-Aryan Languages |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-521-29944-2 |page=39}}</ref><ref name="Kopstein_p3452">{{cite book |last1=Kopstein |first1=Jeffrey |url=https://archive.org/details/comparativepolit00kops_125 |title=Comparative Politics: Interests, Identities, and Institutions in a Changing Global Order |last2=Lichbach |first2=Mark Irving |publisher=Cambridge University |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-521-84316-4 |edition=2nd |page= |url-access=limited |orig-year=First published 2000}}</ref> but may have deeper pre-Neolithic roots from ], specifically from the ].{{sfn|Cavalli-Sforza|Menozzi|Piazza|1994|pp=221-222}}<ref name="kumar20042">{{cite book |last=Kumar |first=Dhavendra |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bpl0LXKj13QC&pg=PA6 |title=Genetic Disorders of the Indian Subcontinent |publisher=Springer |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-4020-1215-0 |page=6 |quote=... The analysis of two Y chromosome variants, Hgr9 and Hgr3 provides interesting data (Quintan-Murci et al., 2001). Microsatellite variation of Hgr9 among Iranians, Pakistanis and Indians indicate an expansion of populations to around 9000 YBP in Iran and then to 6,000 YBP in India. This migration originated in what was historically termed Elam in south-west Iran to the Indus valley, and may have been associated with the spread of Dravidian languages from south-west Iran (Quintan-Murci et al., 2001). ... |access-date=25 November 2008}}</ref>{{sfn|Kivisild|1999|p=1333}}{{sfn|Parpola|2015|p=17}}{{sfn|Samuel|2008|p=54 note 15}} Their origins are often viewed as being connected with the ],<ref name="Tudu2008_p.4002">{{harvnb|Tudu|2008|p=400}}</ref>{{sfn|Samuel|2008|p=54 note 15}}{{sfn|Parpola|2015}} hence people and language spread east and southwards after the demise of the Indus Valley Civilisation in the early second millennium BCE,{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2018|p=15}}<ref name="scientificamerican.com2">{{cite journal |last=Marris |first=Emma |date=3 March 2014 |title=200-Year Drought Doomed Indus Valley Civilization |url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/200-year-drought-doomed-indus-valley-civilization/ |journal=Nature |doi=10.1038/nature.2014.14800 |s2cid=131063035 |url-access=subscription |via=Scientific American}}</ref> some propose not long before the arrival of Indo-Aryan speakers,<ref name="The Dravidianization of India2">Razab Khan, </ref> with whom they intensively interacted.<ref name="britannicaOnline2">{{cite web |last=Krishnamurti |first=Bhadriraju |date=8 July 2015 |title=Dravidian languages |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dravidian-languages |website=]}}</ref> Though some scholars have argued that the Dravidian languages may have been brought to India by migrations from the Iranian plateau in the fourth or third millennium BCE<ref name="tls1963">{{Citation |author=Tamil Literature Society |title=Tamil Culture |date=1963 |volume=10 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cNUgAAAAMAAJ |access-date=2008-11-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230409105615/https://books.google.com/books?id=cNUgAAAAMAAJ |archive-date=9 April 2023 |url-status=live |publisher=Academy of Tamil Culture |quote=... together with the evidence of archaeology would seem to suggest that the original Dravidian-speakers entered India from Iran in the fourth millennium BC ...}}</ref>{{sfn|Andronov|2003|p=299}} or even earlier,<ref name="mukherjee20012">{{Citation |author1=Namita Mukherjee |title=High-resolution analysis of Y-chromosomal polymorphisms reveals signatures of population movements from central Asia and West Asia into India |date=December 2001 |journal=Journal of Genetics |volume=80 |issue=3 |pages=125–35 |publisher=Springer India |doi=10.1007/BF02717908 |pmid=11988631 |s2cid=13267463 |quote=... More recently, about 15,000–10,000 years before present (ybp), when agriculture developed in the Fertile Crescent region that extends from Israel through northern Syria to western Iran, there was another eastward wave of human migration (Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994; Renfrew 1987), a part of which also appears to have entered India. This wave has been postulated to have brought the Dravidian languages into India (Renfrew 1987). Subsequently, the Indo-European (Aryan) language family was introduced into India about 4,000 ybp ... |author2=Almut Nebel |author3=Ariella Oppenheim |author4=Partha P. Majumder}}</ref><ref name="kumar20043">{{Citation |author=Dhavendra Kumar |title=Genetic Disorders of the Indian Subcontinent |year=2004 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bpl0LXKj13QC |access-date=2008-11-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230409105646/https://books.google.com/books?id=bpl0LXKj13QC |archive-date=9 April 2023 |url-status=live |publisher=Springer |isbn=1-4020-1215-2 |quote=... The analysis of two Y chromosome variants, Hgr9 and Hgr3 provides interesting data (Quintan-Murci et al., 2001). Microsatellite variation of Hgr9 among Iranians, Pakistanis and Indians indicate an expansion of populations to around 9000 YBP in Iran and then to 6,000 YBP in India. This migration originated in what was historically termed Elam in south-west Iran to the Indus valley, and may have been associated with the spread of Dravidian languages from south-west Iran (Quintan-Murci et al., 2001). ...}}</ref> reconstructed proto-Dravidian vocabulary suggests that the family is indigenous to India.{{sfn|Krishnamurti|2003|p=15}}{{sfn|Avari|2007|p=13}}
Classical anthropology viewed them as an own race of the about 40 human races ("Weddid race").Indeed
they differ from northern Indians in many respects (often very dark skin. However, it should be noted that there is a clinal variation of skin colour from North-West of India to South-East of India.)and were considered by some authorities as somewhat pedomorphous.It has to be kept in mind that a serious scientific debate is not possible nowadays because of the widespread Boasian multiculturalism. So most recent historians have rejected the concept of a distinct Dravidian race, though some geneticists do assert that southern Indians have a distinctive genetic history that differentiates them from Indo-Aryans. Others argue that there is no significant ethnic or racial distinction between northern Indians and southern Indians and that differences in ] are simply caused by climate, comparable to the fact that the ]s (southern Europeans) have darker skin, eye and hair color than the ]s (northwestern Europeans), but they are otherwise very similar. The somewhat darker skins of the Dravidians may be explained by their adaptation to the hotter and sunnier climate.


Genetically, the ancient Indus Valley people were composed of a primarily Iranian hunter-gatherers (or farmers) ancestry, with varying degrees of ancestry from local hunter-gatherer groups. The modern-day Dravidian-speakers are primarily composed of Ancient South Indian hunter-gatherer ancestry and varying levels of Indus Valley Civilisation ancestry, but also carry a small portion of ] ancestry and may also have additional contributions from local hunter-gatherer groups.{{sfn|Reich et al.|2009}}{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Narasimhan |first1=Vagheesh M. |last2=Patterson |first2=Nick |last3=Moorjani |first3=Priya |last4=Rohland |first4=Nadin |last5=Bernardos |first5=Rebecca |last6=Mallick |first6=Swapan |last7=Lazaridis |first7=Iosif |last8=Nakatsuka |first8=Nathan |last9=Olalde |first9=Iñigo |last10=Lipson |first10=Mark |last11=Kim |first11=Alexander M. |last12=Olivieri |first12=Luca M. |last13=Coppa |first13=Alfredo |last14=Vidale |first14=Massimo |last15=Mallory |first15=James |date=2019-09-06 |title=The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia |journal=Science |language=en |volume=365 |issue=6457 |pages=eaat7487 |doi=10.1126/science.aat7487 |issn=0036-8075 |pmc=6822619 |pmid=31488661}}</ref>
] ] maintained in his book ''The History and Geography of Human Genes'' that the proto-Dravidians of the ] were a Caucasoid people, preceded by an ]-type people whose linguistic origins remain unknown, and followed by ]-speaking ]s sometime later.


The third century BCE onwards saw the development of many great empires in South India like ], ], ], ], ], ], ] and ]. Medieval South Indian guilds and trading organisations like the "Ayyavole of Karnataka and Manigramam" played an important role in the Southeast Asia trade,<ref name="World p.293">Angela Schottenhammer, ''The Emporium of the World: Maritime Quanzhou, 1000–1400'', p.293</ref> and the ] of the region.
==Dravidian languages and Dravidian peoples==
{{main|Dravidian languages}}


Dravidian visual art is dominated by ] in major centres, and the production of images on stone and bronze sculptures. The sculpture dating from the ] has become notable as a symbol of ]. The ] located in Indian state of ] is often considered as the largest functioning Hindu temple in the world. The temple is built in Dravidian style and occupies an area of 156 acres (631,000 m<sup>2</sup>).<ref>{{cite web| url =http://www.indiantemples.com/Tamilnadu/df001.html| title = Tiruvarangam Divya Desam}}</ref>
The Dravidian languages are grouped into Northern, Central and Southern categories. The Northern is mainly ] which is spoken in Southern or Southwestern ]. The southern is the most active and mainly consists of the languages ], ], ] and ]. It should be noted that Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada are highly influenced by ] both in vocabulary and grammar. This could be attributed to the dominance of Brahmins in the past and also to the adaptation of Sanskrit as the principal language of Buddhism, Jainism and Saivism in those societies. In ] tradition the creation of the ] is credited to the ] sage Rishi Agastya, a view that secular linguists would interpret as a ] designed to link Dravidians to Vedic Indo-Aryan culture. These languages are called Dravidian for purely linguistic reasons; the peoples who use them are of varying racial types.


==Etymology==
Some believe that Dravidian-speaking peoples may have been spread throughout the ] and even in southwestern ] (], which may have had a language similar to the Dravidian languages) before the ] settled much of India. The early Indus Valley civilization (] and ]) is often presumed to have been Dravidian. A theory, which is controversial now, suggests that its peoples were then forced southwards by the ].
{{Main|Dravidian languages#Etymology}}
The origin of the Sanskrit word ''{{IAST|drāviḍa}}'' is ].<ref>{{cite book|last=Shulman|first=David|title=Tamil|publisher=]}}</ref> In ], words such as "Damela", "Dameda", "Dhamila" and "Damila", which later evolved from "Tamila", could have been used to denote an ethnic identity.<ref name="KI157" /> In the Sanskrit tradition, the word ''{{IAST|drāviḍa}}'' was also used to denote the geographical region of South India.<ref name="Zvelebil 1990 xx">{{harvnb|Zvelebil|1990|p=xx}}</ref> Epigraphic evidence of an ethnic group termed as such is found in ancient India and Sri Lanka where a number of inscriptions have come to light datable from the 2nd century BCE mentioning ''Damela'' or ''Dameda'' persons.<ref name="KI157" /> The ] of the ] ruler ] refers to a ''T(ra)mira samghata'' (Confederacy of Tamil rulers) dated to 150 BCE. It also mentions that the league of Tamil kingdoms had been in existence for 113 years by that time.<ref name="KI157">Indrapala, K ''The Evolution of an ethnic identity: The Tamils of Sri Lanka'', pp.155–156</ref> In ] in present-day ] there is an inscription referring to a ''Dhamila-vaniya'' (Tamil trader) datable to the 3rd century CE.<ref name="KI157" /> Another inscription of about the same time in ] seems to refer to a ''Damila''. A third inscription in ] refers to a ''Dhamila-gharini'' (Tamil house-holder). In the ] ] story known as ''Akiti Jataka'' there is a mention to ''Damila-rattha'' (Tamil dynasty).


While the English word ''Dravidian'' was first employed by ] in his book of comparative Dravidian grammar based on the usage of the Sanskrit word ''{{IAST|drāviḍa}}'' in the work ''Tantravārttika'' by {{IAST|Kumārila Bhaṭṭa}},<ref name="Zvelebil 1990 xx"/> the word ''{{IAST|drāviḍa}}'' in Sanskrit has been historically used to denote geographical regions of southern India as whole. Some theories concern the direction of derivation between ''{{IAST|tamiḻ}}'' and ''{{IAST|drāviḍa}}''; such linguists as Zvelebil assert that the direction is from ''{{IAST|tamiḻ}}'' to ''{{IAST|drāviḍa}}''.<ref>{{harvnb|Zvelebil|1990|p=xxi}}</ref>
Most scholars believe that the Dravidians were not indigenous to India and migrated to India from the Northwest, although, according to Tamil tradition, the Tamils came from a submerged island in the Southeast. Anthropology supports this thesis of their origin because they have much in common morphologically and genetically with the Palaemongolid race in Indochina.


==Ethnic groups==
Some scholars like J. Bloch and M. Witzel believe that the Dravidians intruded upon an Indo-Aryan speaking area after the oldest parts of the ] were already composed (see Bryant 2001: chapter 5). This theory might be supported if a higher antiquity of the Indo-Aryan languages could be established. However, since this theory is mainly a linguistic hypothesis, the Dravidian influence on Aryan languages must not necessarly be equated to a movement of populations. A small number of individuals, rather than populations, could have influenced the ] language. The influence of Sanskrit itself on the Dravidian languages was the result of individual Sanksrit speakers (and not of whole populations) migrating to South India.
The largest Dravidian ethnic groups are the ] from ] and ], the ] from ], ], ] and ], the ] from ], the ] from ], and the ] from Karnataka.
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Name
! Subgroup
! data-sort-type="number"| Population
! class="unsortable"| Notes
|-
| ]
| South Dravidian
| 133,500 (2011 census)
| Badagas are found in ].
|-
| ]
| North Dravidian
| 700,000 (1996)
| Brahuis are mostly found in the ] region of ], with smaller numbers in southwestern ].
|-
| ]
| South-Central Dravidian
| 65,000
| Chenchus are found in ], ], and ].
|-
| ]
| South Dravidian
| 203,382 (2011 census)
| Irula are found in ], ]
|-
| ]
| South Dravidian
| 0 < 100 (Extinct)
| Giraavaru people were found in ].
|-
| ]
| Central Dravidian
| data-sort-value="13,000,000"| 13 million (approx.){{Citation needed|date=April 2019}}
| Gondi belong to the central Dravidian subgroup. They are spread over the states of ], ], ], ], ], ], ] and ]. A state named ] was proposed to represent them in ].
|-
| ]
| South-Central Dravidian
| 1,627,486 (2011 census)
| Khonds are found in ].
|-
| ]
| South Dravidian
| data-sort-value="43,700,000"| 43.7 million<ref name=census>{{cite web |url=http://censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/Statement3.htm |title=Census 2011: Languages by state |publisher=Censusindia.gov.in |access-date=12 February 2013}}</ref>
| Kannadigas are native to ] in ] but a considerable population is also found in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Kerala.
|-
| ]
| South Dravidian
| 160,000 (approx.){{Citation needed|date=April 2019}}
| Kodavas are native to the ].
|-
|]
|Central Dravidian
|
| found in ] and ]
|-
| ]
| North Dravidian
| data-sort-value="3,600,000"| 3.6 million (approx.)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/PCA/ST.html |title=A-11 Individual Scheduled Tribe Primary Census Abstract Data and its Appendix |website=censusindia.gov.in |publisher=Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India |access-date=6 December 2018}}</ref>
| Kurukh are spread over parts of the states of ], ] and ]. Oraon people{{clarify|reason=The linked wiki article for 'Kurukh' suggests that 'Oraon' and 'Kurukh' refer to the same group of people, but the wording here seems to imply that they refer to different groups of people.|date=May 2021}} of ] and ] speak Kurukh, also Kurux, Oraon or Uranw, as their native language.
|-
| ]
| South Dravidian
| N/A
| Kurumbar are found in ], ] and ].
|-
| ]
| South Dravidian
| data-sort-value="32,200,000"| 45 million<ref>{{cite book |last1=Johnson |first1=Todd M. |last2=Grim |first2=Brian J. |year=2013 |chapter=Global Religious Populations, 1910–2010 |chapter-url=http://media.johnwiley.com.au/product_data/excerpt/47/04706745/0470674547-196.pdf |title=The World's Religions in Figures: An Introduction to International Religious Demography |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |access-date=11 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131020100448/http://media.johnwiley.com.au/product_data/excerpt/47/04706745/0470674547-196.pdf |archive-date=20 October 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=census/>
| Malayalis are native to Kerala and Lakshadweep, but are also found in Puducherry and parts of Tamil Nadu. They are also found in large numbers in Middle East countries, the Americas and Australia.
|-
| ]
| South Dravidian
| N/A
| Paniya are found in ] and ].
|-
| ]
| South Dravidian
| data-sort-value="78,000,000"| 78 million<ref>{{cite web |url=http://tamilo.com/tamil-population-education-29.html |title=World Tamil Population |date=August 2008 |website=Tamilo.com |access-date=4 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150930204226/http://tamilo.com/tamil-population-education-29.html |archive-date=30 September 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
| Tamils are native to ], ] and northern and eastern ], but are also found in parts of ], ] and ], although they have a large ] and are also widespread throughout many countries including ], ], the ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ]an countries, ], ], ] and ], as are the other three major Dravidian languages.<ref>{{cite web |title=History of the Tamil Diaspora |author=Sivasupramaniam, V. |url=http://murugan.org/research/sivasupramaniam.htm |website=Murugan.org}}</ref>
|-
| ]
| Central Dravidian
| data-sort-value="85,100,000"| 85.1 million<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.friendsoftelugu.org/UCB/index.php/telugu-people-stats |url-status=dead |title=Telugu People around the world |publisher=Friends of Telugu |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130225141907/http://www.friendsoftelugu.org/UCB/index.php/telugu-people-stats |archive-date=25 February 2013 |access-date=12 February 2013}}</ref>
| Telugus are native to ], ] and ] (]), but are also found in parts of ], ], ] and ]. Further, they have a large ] and are also widespread throughout many countries including the ], ], ] and ]an countries. Telugu is the fastest growing language in the United States.<ref>{{cite news |title=Do you speak Telugu? Welcome to America|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-45902204 |newspaper=BBC News|date=21 October 2018 }}</ref>
|-
| ]
| South Dravidian
| 2,002 (2011 census)
| Todas are found in ].
|-
| ]
| South Dravidian
| data-sort-value="2,000,000"| 2 million (approx.){{Citation needed|date=April 2019}}
| Tuluvas are found in coastal Karnataka and Northern Kerala (Kasaragodu district) in ]. A state named ] was proposed to represent them in ].
|}


==Language==
Into the 21st century, Indians, with possible justification, continue to accuse the ] ] of exaggerating differences between northern and southern Indians beyond ] differences to help sustain their control of India. The British Raj ended in 1947, yet all discussion of ] or Dravidian "]" remains highly controversial in India.
{{Main|Dravidian languages}}
]


The Dravidian language family is one of the oldest in the world. Six languages are currently recognized by India as Classical languages and four of them are Dravidian languages Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.
== Dravidian and Vedic culture ==


The most commonly spoken Dravidian languages are ] (తెలుగు), ] (தமிழ்), ] (ಕನ್ನಡ), ] (മലയാളം), ] (براہوئی), ] (തുളു), ] and ]. There are three subgroups within the Dravidian language family: North Dravidian, Central Dravidian, and South Dravidian, matching for the most part the corresponding regions in the Indian subcontinent.
The Dravidians and South Indians have been in some respects the best preservers of ancient Vedic culture and traditions, especially when the north of India was dominated by ] and later was affected by ]. Some modern theories of the origins of both ] and ] focus on the resultant mixture of the "Aryan" and "Dravidian" cultures.


Dravidian grammatical impact on the structure and syntax of Indo-Aryan languages is considered far greater than the Indo-Aryan grammatical impact on Dravidian. Some linguists explain this anomaly by arguing that Middle Indo-Aryan and New Indo-Aryan were built on a Dravidian ].<ref>{{harvnb|Krishnamurti|2003|pp=40–1}}</ref> There are also hundreds of Dravidian loanwords in Indo-Aryan languages, and vice versa.
According to the ]s, the Dravidians are descendants of the Vedic Turvasha people. According to the ], ] is considered as a south Indian king. In ] tradition the creation of the ] is credited to the ] sage Rishi Agastya, a view that secular linguists would interpret as a ] designed to link Dravidians to Vedic Indo-Aryan culture.


According to David McAlpin and his ], the Dravidian languages were brought to India by immigration into India from ] (not to be confused with ]), located in present-day southwestern ].<ref name="kumar2004">{{cite book |last=Kumar |first=Dhavendra |year=2004 |title=Genetic Disorders of the Indian Subcontinent |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bpl0LXKj13QC&pg=PA6 |publisher=Springer |page=6 |isbn=978-1-4020-1215-0 |access-date=25 November 2008 |quote=... The analysis of two Y chromosome variants, Hgr9 and Hgr3 provides interesting data (Quintan-Murci et al., 2001). Microsatellite variation of Hgr9 among Iranians, Pakistanis and Indians indicate an expansion of populations to around 9000 YBP in Iran and then to 6,000 YBP in India. This migration originated in what was historically termed Elam in south-west Iran to the Indus valley, and may have been associated with the spread of Dravidian languages from south-west Iran (Quintan-Murci et al., 2001). ...}}</ref><ref>David McAlpin, "Toward Proto-Elamo-Dravidian", ''Language'' vol. 50 no. 1 (1974); David McAlpin: "Elamite and Dravidian, Further Evidence of Relationships", ''Current Anthropology'' vol. 16 no. 1 (1975); David McAlpin: "Linguistic prehistory: the Dravidian situation", in Madhav M. Deshpande and Peter Edwin Hook: ''Aryan and Non-Aryan in India'', Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1979); David McAlpin, "Proto-Elamo-Dravidian: The Evidence and its Implications", ''Transactions of the American Philosophical Society'' vol. 71 pt. 3, (1981)</ref> In the 1990s, Renfrew and Cavalli-Sforza have also argued that Proto-Dravidian was brought to India by farmers from the Iranian part of the Fertile Crescent,{{sfn|Cavalli-Sforza|Menozzi|Piazza|1994|pp=221–222}}<ref name="mukherjee2001">{{citation |title=High-resolution analysis of Y-chromosomal polymorphisms reveals signatures of population movements from central and western Asia into India |author1=Namita Mukherjee |author2=Almut Nebel |author3=Ariella Oppenheim |author4=Partha P. Majumder |journal=] |date=December 2001 |volume=80 |issue=3 |doi=10.1007/BF02717908 |quote=... More recently, about 15,000–10,000 years before present (ybp), when agriculture developed in the Fertile Crescent region that extends from Israel through northern Syria to western Iran, there was another eastward wave of human migration (Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994; Renfrew 1987), a part of which also appears to have entered India. This wave has been postulated to have brought the Dravidian languages into India (Renfrew 1987). Subsequently, the Indo-European (Aryan) language family was introduced into India about 4,000 ybp ... |pmid=11988631 |pages=125–35|s2cid=13267463 }}</ref>{{sfn|Derenko|2013}}{{refn|group=note|Derenko: "The spread of these new technologies has been associated with the dispersal of Dravidian and Indo-European languages in southern Asia. It is hypothesized that the proto-Elamo-Dravidian language, most likely originated in the Elam province in southwestern Iran, spread eastwards with the movement of farmers to the Indus Valley and the Indian sub-continent."{{sfn|Derenko|2013}}<br /><br />Derenko refers to:<br />* Renfrew (1987), ''Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins''<br />* Renfrew (1996), ''Language families and the spread of farming.'' In: Harris DR, editor, ''The origins and spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia'', pp. 70–92<br />* Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi, Piazza (1994), ''The History and Geography of Human Genes''.}} but more recently Heggerty and Renfrew noted that "McAlpin's analysis of the language data, and thus his claims, remain far from orthodoxy", adding that Fuller finds no relation of Dravidian language with other languages, and thus assumes it to be native to India.<ref name=Heggarty_Renfrew>{{citation |last1=Heggarty |first1=Paul |last2=Renfrew |first2=Collin |year=2014 |chapter=South and Island Southeast Asia; Languages |editor-last1=Renfrew |editor-first1=Colin |editor-last2=Bahn |editor-first2=Paul |title=The Cambridge World Prehistory |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vWbwAwAAQBAJ |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9781107647756}}</ref> Renfrew and Bahn conclude that several scenarios are compatible with the data, and that "the linguistic jury is still very much out."<ref name=Heggarty_Renfrew/>
Tamil literature and Tamil epics and classics have many references to Vedic gods and culture. The ] mentions non-Vedic, early-Vedic (], ]) and Puranic (]) gods. The Paripadal (8; 3; 9 etc.), one of the "Eight Anthologies" of poetry (or ettuttokai), has homages to ], ], ], the twelve ]s, the Ashwins, the Rudras, the Saptarishis, ], the Devas etc. The ], written by ], mentions gods like Indra (25) and Lakshmi (e.g. 167).


As a ], the ] language is not itself attested in the historical record. Its modern conception is based solely on reconstruction. It is suggested that the language was spoken in the 4th millennium BCE, and started disintegrating into various branches around 3rd millennium BCE.<ref name="books.google.com"/> According to Krishnamurti, Proto-Dravidian may have been spoken in the Indus civilisation, suggesting a "tentative date of Proto-Dravidian around the early part of the third millennium."{{sfn|Krishnamurti|2003|p=501}} Krishnamurti further states that South Dravidian I (including pre-Tamil) and South Dravidian II (including pre-Telugu) split around the eleventh century BCE, with the other major branches splitting off at around the same time.{{sfn|Krishnamurti|2003|p=501–502}}
The Tamil epic ], begins with invocations to ], ], and ], and has homages to ], ], ], Subrahmanya, Vishnu-Krishna, Uma, etc. The epic states that &#8220;Vedic sacrifices being faultlessly performed&#8221; and has many references to Vedic culture and Vedic texts. In the Buddhist work ], the submersion of the city Puhar in ] is attributed to the neglect of the worship to ].


==Kumari Kandam== ==History==


===Origins===
According to Tamil Tradition, the Dravidians originally came from a submerged island ] in the south of India. The Epics ] and ] describe the submerged city of ]. ] has also been linked to ].
{{See also|Peopling of India|Genetics and archaeogenetics of South Asia|Dravidian languages#Prehistory|l1=History of Dravidian languages|Proto-Dravidian|l2=Proto-Dravidian|Dravidian homeland|l3=Dravidian homeland|Neolithic revolution|l4=Neolithic revolution|Fertile Crescent|l5=Fertile Crescent|Demic diffusion|l6=Demic diffusion|Mehrgarh#Origins|l7=Origins of Mehrgahr}}
], a prehistoric ] made in approximately 2500 BCE in the ] city of ].]]
The origins of the Dravidians are a "very complex subject of research and debate".<ref name="Tudu2008_p.4002">{{harvnb|Tudu|2008|p=400}}</ref> They are regarded as indigenous to the ],<ref name="Avari_p132" /><ref name="Masica_p392">{{cite book |last=Masica |first=Colin P. |title=The Indo-Aryan Languages |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-521-29944-2 |page=39}}</ref><ref name="Kopstein_p3452">{{cite book |last1=Kopstein |first1=Jeffrey |url=https://archive.org/details/comparativepolit00kops_125 |title=Comparative Politics: Interests, Identities, and Institutions in a Changing Global Order |last2=Lichbach |first2=Mark Irving |publisher=Cambridge University |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-521-84316-4 |edition=2nd |page= |url-access=limited |orig-year=First published 2000}}</ref> but may have deeper pre-Neolithic roots from ], specifically from the ].{{sfn|Cavalli-Sforza|Menozzi|Piazza|1994|pp=221-222}}<ref name="kumar20042">{{cite book |last=Kumar |first=Dhavendra |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bpl0LXKj13QC&pg=PA6 |title=Genetic Disorders of the Indian Subcontinent |publisher=Springer |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-4020-1215-0 |page=6 |quote=... The analysis of two Y chromosome variants, Hgr9 and Hgr3 provides interesting data (Quintan-Murci et al., 2001). Microsatellite variation of Hgr9 among Iranians, Pakistanis and Indians indicate an expansion of populations to around 9000 YBP in Iran and then to 6,000 YBP in India. This migration originated in what was historically termed Elam in south-west Iran to the Indus valley, and may have been associated with the spread of Dravidian languages from south-west Iran (Quintan-Murci et al., 2001). ... |access-date=25 November 2008}}</ref>{{sfn|Kivisild|1999|p=1333}}{{sfn|Parpola|2015|p=17}}{{sfn|Samuel|2008|p=54 note 15}} Their origins are often viewed as being connected with the ],<ref name="Tudu2008_p.4002">{{harvnb|Tudu|2008|p=400}}</ref>{{sfn|Samuel|2008|p=54 note 15}}{{sfn|Parpola|2015}} hence people and language spread east and southwards after the demise of the Indus Valley Civilisation in the early second millennium BCE,{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2018|p=15}}<ref name="scientificamerican.com2">{{cite journal |last=Marris |first=Emma |date=3 March 2014 |title=200-Year Drought Doomed Indus Valley Civilization |url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/200-year-drought-doomed-indus-valley-civilization/ |journal=Nature |doi=10.1038/nature.2014.14800 |s2cid=131063035 |url-access=subscription |via=Scientific American}}</ref> some propose not long before the arrival of Indo-Aryan speakers,<ref name="The Dravidianization of India2">Razab Khan, </ref> with whom they intensively interacted.<ref name="britannicaOnline2">{{cite web |last=Krishnamurti |first=Bhadriraju |date=8 July 2015 |title=Dravidian languages |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dravidian-languages |website=]}}</ref> Though some scholars have argued that the Dravidian languages may have been brought to India by migrations from the Iranian plateau in the fourth or third millennium BCE<ref name="tls1963">{{Citation |author=Tamil Literature Society |title=Tamil Culture |date=1963 |volume=10 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cNUgAAAAMAAJ |access-date=2008-11-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230409105615/https://books.google.com/books?id=cNUgAAAAMAAJ |archive-date=9 April 2023 |url-status=live |publisher=Academy of Tamil Culture |quote=... together with the evidence of archaeology would seem to suggest that the original Dravidian-speakers entered India from Iran in the fourth millennium BC ...}}</ref>{{sfn|Andronov|2003|p=299}} or even earlier,<ref name="mukherjee20012">{{Citation |author1=Namita Mukherjee |title=High-resolution analysis of Y-chromosomal polymorphisms reveals signatures of population movements from central Asia and West Asia into India |date=December 2001 |journal=Journal of Genetics |volume=80 |issue=3 |pages=125–35 |publisher=Springer India |doi=10.1007/BF02717908 |pmid=11988631 |s2cid=13267463 |quote=... More recently, about 15,000–10,000 years before present (ybp), when agriculture developed in the Fertile Crescent region that extends from Israel through northern Syria to western Iran, there was another eastward wave of human migration (Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994; Renfrew 1987), a part of which also appears to have entered India. This wave has been postulated to have brought the Dravidian languages into India (Renfrew 1987). Subsequently, the Indo-European (Aryan) language family was introduced into India about 4,000 ybp ... |author2=Almut Nebel |author3=Ariella Oppenheim |author4=Partha P. Majumder}}</ref><ref name="kumar20043">{{Citation |author=Dhavendra Kumar |title=Genetic Disorders of the Indian Subcontinent |year=2004 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bpl0LXKj13QC |access-date=2008-11-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230409105646/https://books.google.com/books?id=bpl0LXKj13QC |archive-date=9 April 2023 |url-status=live |publisher=Springer |isbn=1-4020-1215-2 |quote=... The analysis of two Y chromosome variants, Hgr9 and Hgr3 provides interesting data (Quintan-Murci et al., 2001). Microsatellite variation of Hgr9 among Iranians, Pakistanis and Indians indicate an expansion of populations to around 9000 YBP in Iran and then to 6,000 YBP in India. This migration originated in what was historically termed Elam in south-west Iran to the Indus valley, and may have been associated with the spread of Dravidian languages from south-west Iran (Quintan-Murci et al., 2001). ...}}</ref> reconstructed proto-Dravidian vocabulary suggests that the family is indigenous to India.{{sfn|Krishnamurti|2003|p=15}}{{sfn|Avari|2007|p=13}}


Genetically, the ancient Indus Valley people were composed of a primarily Iranian hunter-gatherers (or farmers) ancestry, with varying degrees of ancestry from local hunter-gatherer groups. The modern-day Dravidian-speakers display a similar genetic makeup, but also carry a small portion of ] ancestry and may also have additional contributions from local hunter-gatherer groups.{{sfn|Reich et al.|2009}}{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2019}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Narasimhan |first1=Vagheesh M. |last2=Patterson |first2=Nick |last3=Moorjani |first3=Priya |last4=Rohland |first4=Nadin |last5=Bernardos |first5=Rebecca |last6=Mallick |first6=Swapan |last7=Lazaridis |first7=Iosif |last8=Nakatsuka |first8=Nathan |last9=Olalde |first9=Iñigo |last10=Lipson |first10=Mark |last11=Kim |first11=Alexander M. |last12=Olivieri |first12=Luca M. |last13=Coppa |first13=Alfredo |last14=Vidale |first14=Massimo |last15=Mallory |first15=James |date=2019-09-06 |title=The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia |journal=Science |language=en |volume=365 |issue=6457 |pages=eaat7487 |doi=10.1126/science.aat7487 |issn=0036-8075 |pmc=6822619 |pmid=31488661}}</ref>
At ], near ], submerged ruins have been found in the ocean.


Although in modern times speakers of various ]s have mainly occupied the southern portion of India, Dravidian speakers must have been widespread throughout the Indian subcontinent before the ] migration into the subcontinent.<ref name="britannicaOnline">{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dravidian-languages |title=Dravidian languages |last=Krishnamurti |first=Bhadriraju |date=8 July 2015 |website=]}}</ref> According to Horen Tudu, "many academic researchers have attempted to connect the Dravidians with the remnants of the great ], located in Northwestern India... but t is mere speculation that the Dravidians are the ensuing post–Indus Valley settlement of refugees into South and Central India."<ref name="Tudu2008_p.400">{{harvnb|Tudu|2008|p=400}}</ref> The most noteworthy scholar making such claims is ],{{sfn|Samuel|2008|p=54 note 15}} who did extensive research on the IVC-scripts.{{sfn|Samuel|2008|p=54 note 15}}{{sfn|Parpola|2015}} The ] population of ] in ] has been taken by some as the linguistic equivalent of a ] population, perhaps indicating that Dravidian languages were formerly much more widespread and were supplanted by the incoming Indo-Aryan languages.<ref>{{Harvnb|Mallory|1989|p=44}}: "There are still remnant northern Dravidian languages including Brahui ... The most obvious explanation of this situation is that the Dravidian languages once occupied nearly all of the Indian subcontinent and it is the intrusion of Indo-Aryans that engulfed them in northern India leaving but a few isolated enclaves. This is further supported by the fact that Dravidian loan words begin to appear in Sanskrit literature from its very beginning."</ref>
== The Eastern Ethiopians ==


Asko Parpola, who regards the Harappans to have been Dravidian, notes that ] (7000–2500&nbsp;BCE), to the west of the ] valley,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4882968.stm |title=Stone age man used dentist drill |date=6 April 2006}}</ref> is a precursor of the Indus Valley Civilisation, whose inhabitants migrated into the Indus Valley and became the Indus Valley Civilisation.{{sfn|Parpola|2015|p=17}} It is one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming and herding in ].<ref>UNESCO World Heritage. 2004. . UNESCO.</ref><ref>Hirst, K. Kris. 2005. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170118071157/http://archaeology.about.com/od/mterms/g/mehrgarh.htm |date=18 January 2017 }}. ''Guide to Archaeology''</ref> According to Lukacs and Hemphill, while there is a strong continuity between the neolithic and ] (Copper Age) cultures of Mehrgarh, dental evidence shows that the chalcolithic population did not descend from the neolithic population of Mehrgarh,{{sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=114}} which "suggests moderate levels of gene flow".{{sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=114}} They further noted that "the direct lineal descendants of the Neolithic inhabitants of Mehrgarh are to be found to the south and the east of Mehrgarh, in northwestern India and the western edge of the Deccan plateau", with neolithic Mehrgarh showing greater affinity with chalocolithic ], south of Mehrgarh, than with chalcolithic Mehrgarh.{{sfn|Coningham|Young|2015|p=114}}
], ] and other Greek authors called the Dravidians the ]s. Greek writers sometimes identified the "Western Aethiopians" of East Africa with the "Eastern Aethiopians" of South India. Also the African and Indian geography were sometimes compared or identified with eachother: ] (vi. i.) mentions that the ] River was thought by some ancient ]s to be the source of the ]. It is usually assumed that by 'Aethiopian' Herodotus simply means 'black person', so that the term really only functions to characterise southern Indians as Eastern black people.


====Indus Valley Civilization====
Herodotus wrote about the Dravidians: ''They differed in nothing from the other Ethiopians, save in their language, and the character of their hair. For the Eastern Ethiopians have straight ], while they of ] are more woolly-haired than any other people in the world. (Herodotus: from The History of the Persian Wars, VII.70., c.430 BCE)''
{{Main|Indus valley civilisation|Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit}}
]


=====Dravidian identification=====
], however, took up this connection between Dravidians and Ethiopians in order to claim a direct racial and cultural link between the two peoples. She was attempting to show that Indian culture influenced Ancient ] via Ethiopia. She described many parallels between ] and ] in her works. After the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilisation ] remarked (referring to ''Secret Doctrine'', vol.2, p.417): ''A highly advanced urban civilization of ] has been discovered on the ] "between Attock and Sind," exactly the location mentioned in ] as the abode of the Aethiopians.''(Encyclopedic Theosophical Glossary).
The ] (2,600–1,900 BCE) located in the northwest of the ] is sometimes identified as having been Dravidian.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.harappa.com/arrow/stone_celt_indus_signs.html |title=Stone celts in Harappa |last=Mahadevan |first=Iravatham |date=6 May 2006 |website=Harappa |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060904034700/http://www.harappa.com/arrow/stone_celt_indus_signs.html |archive-date=4 September 2006}}</ref><ref name="Ansumali Mukhopadhyay 1–14">{{Cite journal |last=Ansumali Mukhopadhyay |first=Bahata |date=2021-08-03 |title=Ancestral Dravidian languages in Indus Civilization: ultraconserved Dravidian tooth-word reveals deep linguistic ancestry and supports genetics |url=https://osf.io/u3xmd/download |journal=Humanities and Social Sciences Communications |language=en |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=1–14 |doi=10.1057/s41599-021-00868-w |issn=2662-9992 |s2cid=257091003 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Already in 1924, when announcing the discovery of the IVC, ] stated that (one of) the language(s) may have been Dravidic.<ref>{{cite news |last=Saju |first=M. T. |date=5 October 2018 |title=Pot route could have linked Indus & Vaigai |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/tracking-indian-communities/pot-route-could-have-linked-indus-vaigai/ |work=The Times of India}}</ref> Cultural and linguistic similarities have been cited by researchers ], ], ] and ] as being strong evidence for a proto-Dravidian origin of the ancient Indus Valley civilisation.<ref>{{cite web |last=Rahman |first=Tariq |title=Peoples and languages in pre-Islamic Indus valley |url=http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html |quote=most scholars have taken the 'Dravidian hypothesis' seriously |access-date=20 November 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080509053921/http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html |archive-date=9 May 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Cole |first=Jennifer |date=2006 |chapter=The Sindhi language |chapter-url=http://www.linguistics.uiuc.edu/jscole/Sindhi_Elsevier_encyl.pdf |editor-last=Brown |editor-first=K. |title=Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics |edition=2nd |volume=11 |publisher=Elsevier |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070106015921/http://www.linguistics.uiuc.edu/jscole/Sindhi_Elsevier_encyl.pdf |archive-date=6 January 2007 |quote=Harappan language&nbsp;... prevailing theory indicates Dravidian origins}}</ref> The discovery in Tamil Nadu of a late Neolithic (early 2nd millennium BCE, i.e. post-dating Harappan decline) stone ] allegedly marked with Indus signs has been considered by some to be significant for the Dravidian identification.<ref>Subramanium 2006; see also {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060904034700/http://www.harappa.com/arrow/stone_celt_indus_signs.html |date=4 September 2006}} by I. Mahadevan (2006)</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Subramanian |first=T. S. |date=1 May 2006 |title=Significance of Mayiladuthurai find |url=http://www.hinduonnet.com/2006/05/01/stories/2006050101992000.htm |newspaper=The Hindu |access-date=9 August 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080430214654/http://www.hinduonnet.com/2006/05/01/stories/2006050101992000.htm |archive-date=30 April 2008 |url-status=dead}}</ref>


] surmised that the symbols represent a ] script and suggested, based on computer analysis, an agglutinative ] language as the most likely candidate for the underlying language.<ref>{{harvnb|Knorozov|1965|p=117}}</ref> Knorozov's suggestion was preceded by the work of Henry Heras, who suggested several readings of signs based on a proto-Dravidian assumption.<ref>{{harvnb|Heras|1953|p=138}}</ref>
==Dravidian tradition and Hinduism==
Interestingly, the original Indo-Aryan gods like Indra, Agni, Vayu etc. are not the principal gods of present day Hindus. Those Indo-Aryan gods have their equivalents in other Indo-European gods in European countries. Those gods occupied the highest position, until the advent of Christianity in those societies, driving the Pre-Indo-European deities to minor position. However, this situation was reversed in India. Here the phallus worship, associated with Shiva, and goddess worship remained supreme throughout India along with two other gods, Brahma and Vishnu, that don't have parallels with other Indo-European gods.


Linguist Asko Parpola writes that the Indus script and Harappan language are "most likely to have belonged to the Dravidian family".<ref>{{cite book |last=Bryant |first=Edwin |year=2003 |title=The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate |publisher=Oxford |page=183 |isbn=978-0-19-516947-8}}</ref> Parpola led a Finnish team in investigating the inscriptions using computer analysis. Based on a proto-Dravidian assumption, they proposed readings of many signs, some agreeing with the suggested readings of Heras and Knorozov (such as equating the "fish" sign with the Dravidian word for fish, "min") but disagreeing on several other readings. A comprehensive description of Parpola's work until 1994 is given in his book ''Deciphering the Indus Script''.<ref>{{harvnb|Parpola|1994}}</ref>
The decidedly Dravidian phallus worship (Shiva ]) and goddess (] or ]) worship (basically "]" to complement phallus) raises many questions as to the origins of the priestly class of Hindus, the ]s.


=====Decline, migration and Dravidianization=====
One scenario would place the invasion/migration of the Indo-Aryans in a specifically Indian context requiring the merging of Dravidian priestly classes with Indo-Aryan priestly classes, creating a proto-caste system somewhere in the North-West of the Indian subcontinent.
] believe the fall of the Indus Valley Civilisation and eastward migration during the late Harappan period was due to climate change in the region, with a 200-year long drought being the major factor.<ref name="scientificamerican.com">{{cite journal |last=Marris |first=Emma |date=3 March 2014 |title=200-Year Drought Doomed Indus Valley Civilization |url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/200-year-drought-doomed-indus-valley-civilization/ |journal=Nature |doi=10.1038/nature.2014.14800 |s2cid=131063035 |via=Scientific American|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Keys |first=David |date=2 March 2014 |title=How climate change ended world's first great civilisations |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/revealed-how-climate-change-ended-worlds-first-great-civilisations-9164248.html |newspaper=The Independent |location=London}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Sinha |first=Kounteya |date=28 February 2014 |title=Climate change caused Indus Valley civilization collapse |url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Climate-change-caused-Indus-Valley-civilization-collapse/articleshow/31133369.cms |newspaper=The Times of India}}</ref> The Indus Valley Civilisation seemed to slowly lose their urban cohesion, and their cities were gradually abandoned during the late Harappan period, followed by eastward migrations before the Indo-Aryan migration into the Indian subcontinent.<ref name="scientificamerican.com"/>


The process of post-Harappan/Dravidian influences on southern India has tentatively been called "Dravidianization",<ref name="The Dravidianization of India">Razab Khan, </ref> and is reflected in the post-Harappan mixture of IVC and Ancient Ancestral South Indian people.{{sfn|Narasimhan et al.|2018}} Yet, according to Krishnamurti, Dravidian languages may have reached south India before Indo-Aryan migrations.<ref name="britannicaOnline" />
By this time, Indo-Aryans did have a structured religious system in their Indo-European language. The rapid adaptation of this system and its spread in North Indian Dravidian population led to linguistic Aryanisation of that population. However, the influence of Dravidian priestly class might also have ensured a dominant place for Dravidian religious practices and symbols.


====Dravidian and Indo-Aryan interactions====
Those South Indian Brahmins who were migrants from North India, invariably speak Dravidian languages and culturally have been totally integrated with Dravidian society. This might show that transition from Dravidian to Indo-European languages was a gradual process. The later migrants to South India like Konkani Saraswat Brahmins and ]s have kept their linguistic identities intact showing the clear linguistic boundaries of the later period.


=====Dravidian substrate=====
Southern Maharashtra was thought to be linguistically Dravidian until a millenium back, considering that a number of stone scriptures of that period were actually written in ]. Also, there are many examples in South India itself to show how the language of religion becomes mother-tongue of a whole community. The Dravidian muslim converts have made ] their mother-tongue in ] and ].
The Dravidian language influenced the Indo-Aryan languages. Dravidian languages show extensive lexical (vocabulary) borrowing, but only a few traits of structural (either ] or grammatical) borrowing from Indo-Aryan, whereas Indo-Aryan shows more structural than lexical borrowings from the Dravidian languages.<ref name="britannicaOnline"/> Many of these features are already present in the oldest known ], the language of the '']'' (c. 1500 BCE), which also includes over a dozen words borrowed from Dravidian. The linguistic evidence for Dravidian impact grows stronger as we move from the Samhitas down through the later Vedic works and into the classical post-Vedic literature.<ref name=Krishnamurti6>{{harvnb|Krishnamurti|2003|p=6}}</ref> This represents an early religious and cultural fusion{{sfn|Lockard|2007|p=50}}{{refn|group=note|name=Lockard|Lockard: "The encounters that resulted from Aryan migration brought together several very different peoples and cultures, reconfiguring Indian society. Over many centuries a fusion of ] and Dravidian occurred, a complex process that historians have labeled the Indo-Aryan synthesis."{{sfn|Lockard|2007|p=50}} Lockard: "Hinduism can be seen historically as a synthesis of Aryan beliefs with Harappan and other Dravidian traditions that developed over many centuries."{{sfn|Lockard|2007|p=52}}}} or synthesis{{sfn|Hiltebeitel|2007|p=12}} between ancient Dravidians and Indo-Aryans.{{sfn|Lockard|2007|p=52}}{{sfn|Tiwari|2002|p=v}}{{sfn|Zimmer|1951|pp=218–219}}{{sfn|Larson|1995|p=81}}


According to Mallory there are an estimated thirty to forty Dravidian loanwords in ].<ref name=MalloryAdams>{{cite book |first1=J. P. |last1=Mallory |first2=D. Q. |last2=Adams |title=Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaindo00mall |url-access=limited |date=1997 |page=|publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9781884964985 }}</ref> Some of those for which Dravidian etymologies are certain include {{lang|sa|ಕುಲಾಯ}} ''kulāya'' "nest", {{lang|sa|ಕುಲ್ಫ}} ''kulpha'' "ankle", {{lang|sa|ದಂಡ}} ''{{IAST|daṇḍa}}'' "stick", {{lang|sa|ಕುಲ}} ''kūla'' "slope", {{lang|sa|ಬಿಲ}} ''bila'' "hollow", {{lang|sa|ಖಲ}} ''khala'' "threshing floor".{{sfn|Zvelebil|1990|p=81}} While J. Bloch and ] believe that the Indo-Aryans moved into an already Dravidian-speaking area after the oldest parts of the ] were already composed.<ref>{{cite book |first=Edwin |last=Bryant |author-link=Edwin Bryant (author) |year=2001 |chapter=Linguistic Substrata in Sanskrit Texts |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nkJAmVuBCcIC&pg=PA76 |pages=76–107 |title=The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate |publisher=] |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-513777-4}}</ref>
It is also worth noticing that even linguistically Indo-European Brahmins like ] and Kashmiri ]s were historically known to be Shiva and Shakti worshippers.


According to Thomason and Kaufman, there is strong evidence that Dravidian influenced ] through "shift", that is, native Dravidian speakers learning and adopting Indic languages.{{sfn|Thomason|Kaufman|1988}} According to Erdosy, the most plausible explanation for the presence of Dravidian structural features in Old Indo-Aryan is that the majority of early Old Indo-Aryan speakers had a Dravidian mother tongue which they gradually abandoned. {{Harvcoltxt|Erdosy|1995|p=18}} Even though the innovative traits in Indic could be explained by multiple internal explanations, early Dravidian influence is the only explanation that can account for all of the innovations at once. Early Dravidian influence accounts for several of the innovative traits in Indic better than any internal explanation that has been proposed.{{sfn|Thomason|Kaufman|1988|pp=141–144}} According to Zvelebil, "several scholars have demonstrated that pre-Indo-Aryan and pre-Dravidian bilingualism in India provided conditions for the far-reaching influence of Dravidian on the Indo-Aryan tongues in the spheres of phonology, syntax and vocabulary."<ref></ref>
A possible conclusion of all these arguments would be that Hindu India was basically a product of the traditions of the Dravidian race, with North-West Indians and Brahmins (since they were the one first merged their identities with Indo-Aryans) showing higher Indo-Aryan admixture.

=====Sanskritization=====
With the rise of the ] a process of ] started which influenced all of India, with the populations of the north of the Indian subcontinent predominantly speaking the Indo-Aryan languages.{{sfn|Witzel|1995}}

===Dravidian kingdoms and empires===
The third century BCE onwards saw the development of large Dravidian empires like ], ], ], ], ] ], and kingdoms like ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ] and the ].

===Medieval trade and influence===
Medieval Tamil guilds and trading organisations like the Ayyavole and ] played an important role in the southeast Asia trade.<ref name="World p.293"/> Traders and religious leaders travelled to southeast Asia and played an important role in the ] of the region. Locally developed scripts such as ] and ] induced the development of many native scripts such as ], ] ], ], and ].

Around this time, Dravidians encountered Muslim traders, and the first ]s and ] appeared.

=== European contact (1500 onward) ===
Portuguese explorers like Vasco de Gama were motivated to expand mainly for the spice markets of Calicut (today called Kozhikode) in modern-day Kerala. This led to the establishment of a series of Portuguese colonies along the western coasts of Karnataka and Kerala, including Mangalore. During this time Portuguese Jesuit priests also arrived and converted a small number of people in modern Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to Catholicism, most notably the Paravars.

==Dravidian culture==

===Religious belief===
{{See also|Dravidian folk religion| Hinduism| Śramaṇa| Jainism| Buddhism| Charvaka| Ājīvika|Indus Valley Civilization}}

Ancient Dravidian religion constituted of an ] and non-] form of religion which may have influenced the ], Vedic and non-] texts<ref name=Narasimhachary>Mudumby Narasimhachary (Ed) (1976). Āgamaprāmāṇya of Yāmunācārya, Issue 160 of Gaekwad's Oriental Series. Oriental Institute, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda.</ref> which post-date the Vedic texts.<ref name="Tripath2001">{{cite book |last=Tripath |first=S. M. |date=2001 |title=Psycho-Religious Studies Of Man, Mind And Nature |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zWFM_SaX24AC&pg=PA54 |publisher=Global Vision Publishing House |pages=54– |isbn=978-81-87746-04-1}}</ref> The ''Agamas'' are ] and ] ] chiefly constituting the methods of temple construction and creation of '']'', worship means of deities, philosophical doctrines, meditative practices, attainment of sixfold desires and four kinds of yoga.<ref name="Grimes1996">{{cite book |last=Grimes |first=John A. |date=1996 |title=A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eP5p0ev3nJEC |publisher=State University of New York Press |isbn=978-0-7914-3068-2|edition=New and Revised }}</ref> The worship of ], as well as sacred flora and fauna in Hinduism is recognised as a survival of the pre-Vedic Dravidian religion.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Modern review: Volume 28; Volume 28|year=1920|publisher=Prabasi Press Private, Ltd.}}</ref> Hinduism can be regarded as a religious and cultural fusion{{sfn|Lockard|2007|p=50}}{{refn|group=note|name=Lockard}} or synthesis{{sfn|Hiltebeitel|2007|p=12}} between ancient Dravidians and Indo-Aryans, and other local elements.{{sfn|Lockard|2007|p=52}}{{sfn|Tiwari|2002|p=v}}{{sfn|Zimmer|1951|pp=218–219}}{{sfn|Larson|1995|p=81}}

], father of Tamil literature]]

Ancient Tamil grammatical works ], the ten anthologies ], and the eight anthologies ] shed light on early ancient Dravidian religion. ] (also known as Seyyon) was glorified as ''the red god seated on the blue peacock, who is ever young and resplendent'', as ''the favoured god of the Tamils''.<ref name="Kanchan Sinha 1979">{{cite book |last=Sinha |first=Kanchan |year=1979 |title=Kārttikeya in Indian art and literature |location=Delhi |publisher=Sundeep Prakashan |oclc=644105825}}</ref> ] was also seen as the supreme God.<ref name="Kanchan Sinha 1979"/> Early iconography of ]<ref>{{cite book |last=Mahadevan |first=Iravatham |title=A Note on the Muruku Sign of the Indus Script in light of the Mayiladuthurai Stone Axe Discovery |year=2006 |publisher=harappa.com |url=http://www.harappa.com/arrow/stone_celt_indus_signs.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060904034700/http://www.harappa.com/arrow/stone_celt_indus_signs.html |archive-date=4 September 2006 }}</ref> and ]<ref>{{cite book |title=The Making of India: A Historical Survey |url=https://archive.org/details/makingindiahisto00vohr |url-access=limited |author=Ranbir Vohra |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |year=2000 |page=|isbn=9780765607119 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Bongard-Levin |first=Grigorii Maksimovich |year=1985 |title=Ancient Indian Civilization |publisher=Arnold-Heinemann |page=45 |oclc=12667676}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Essential Hinduism |author=Steven Rosen, Graham M. Schweig |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2006 |page=45}}</ref> and their association with native flora and fauna goes back to the Indus Valley Civilisation.<ref>{{Harvnb|Basham|1967|page=27}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Plants of life, plants of death |author=Frederick J. Simoons |year=1998 |page=363}}</ref> The ] was classified into five categories, ''thinais'', based on the mood, the season and the land. Tolkappiyam mentions that each of these ''thinai'' had an associated deity such as Seyyon in ''Kurinji'' (hills), ] in ''Mullai'' (forests), and ] in ''Marutham'' (plains), and ] in the ''Neithal'' (coasts and seas). Other gods mentioned were ] and ], now identified with Krishna and Balarama, who are all major deities in Hinduism today. This represents an early religious and cultural fusion{{sfn|Lockard|2007|p=50}}{{refn|group=note|name=Lockard}} or synthesis{{sfn|Hiltebeitel|2007|p=12}} between ancient Dravidians and Indo-Aryans, which became more evident over time with sacred iconography, traditions, philosophy, flora and fauna that went on to influence and shape Indian civilisation.{{sfn|Tiwari|2002|p=v}}{{sfn|Lockard|2007|p=52}}{{sfn|Zimmer|1951|pp=218–219}}{{sfn|Larson|1995|p=81}}

], dedicated to Goddess ], tutelary deity of Madurai city]]

Throughout ], a king was considered to be divine by nature and possessed religious significance.<ref name="Harman 1992 6">{{cite book |last=Harman |first=William P. |title=The sacred marriage of a Hindu goddess |year=1992 |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |pages=6}}</ref> The king was 'the representative of God on earth' and lived in a "koyil", which means the "residence of a god". The Modern Tamil word for temple is '']'' ({{langx|ta|கோயில்}}). Ritual worship was also given to kings.<ref name="Anand 1980">{{cite book |last=Anand |first=Mulk Raj |title=Splendours of Tamil Nadu |year=1980 |publisher=Marg Publications |isbn=9780391025240 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8cPYAAAAMAAJ}}</ref><ref name="Chopra 1979">{{cite book |last=Chopra |first=Pran Nath |title=History of South India |year=1979 |publisher=S. Chand }}</ref> Modern words for god like "kō" ({{langx|ta|கோ}} "king"), "iṟai" ({{lang|ta|இறை}} "emperor") and "āṇḍavar" ({{lang|ta|ஆண்டவன்}} "conqueror") now primarily refer to gods. These elements were incorporated later into Hinduism like the legendary marriage of ] to Queen Mīnātchi who ruled ] or ], a god who later merged into ].<ref name="Bate 2009">{{cite book |last=Bate |first=Bernard |title=Tamil oratory and the Dravidian aesthetic: democratic practice in south India |year=2009 |publisher=Columbia University Press}}</ref> Tolkappiyar refers to the ] as the "Three Glorified by Heaven", ({{indic|lang=ta|indic=வாண்புகழ் மூவர் |trans=Vāṉpukaḻ Mūvar}}).<ref name="A. Kiruṭṭin̲an̲ 2000 17">{{cite book |last=Kiruṭṭin̲an̲ |first=A. |title=Tamil culture: religion, culture, and literature |year=2000 |publisher=Bharatiya Kala Prakashan |pages=17 |oclc=603890991}}</ref> In Dravidian-speaking South India, the concept of divine kingship led to the assumption of major roles by state and temple.<ref name="Embree 1988">{{cite book |last=Embree |first=Ainslie Thomas |author-link=Ainslie Embree |title=Encyclopedia of Asian history: Volume 1 |year=1988 |publisher=Scribner |isbn=9780684188980 |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofas0000embr |url-access=registration}}</ref>

The cult of the mother goddess is treated as an indication of a society which venerated femininity. This mother goddess was conceived as a virgin, one who has given birth to all and one, and were typically associated with ].<ref>{{cite book |last=Thiruchandran |first=Selvy |title=Ideology, caste, class, and gender |year=1997 |publisher=Vikas Pub. House}}</ref> The temples of the Sangam days, mainly of Madurai, seem to have had priestesses to the deity, which also appears predominantly as a goddess.<ref>{{cite book |last=Manickam |first=Valliappa Subramaniam |title=A glimpse of Tamilology |year=1968 |publisher=Academy of Tamil Scholars of Tamil Nadu |pages=75 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bIQOAAAAYAAJ&q=sangam+priestess}}</ref> In the Sangam literature, there is an elaborate description of the rites performed by the Kurava priestess in the shrine Palamutircholai.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lal |first=Mohan |title=The Encyclopaedia Of Indian Literature |volume=5 |year=2006 |publisher=Sahitya Akademi |isbn=978-8126012213 |pages=4396}}</ref>

Among the early Dravidians, the practice of erecting memorial stones, ], had appeared, and it continued for quite a long time after the Sangam age, down to about the 16th century.<ref name="shashi1996">{{cite book |last=Shashi |first=S.S. |title=Encyclopaedia Indica: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh: Volume 100 |year=1996 |publisher=Anmol Publications}}</ref> It was customary for people who sought victory in war to worship these ]s to bless them with victory''.<ref name="subramanium1980">{{cite book |last=Subramanium |first=N. |title=Śaṅgam polity: the administration and social life of the Śaṅgam Tamils |year=1980 |publisher=Ennes Publications}}</ref>''

===Architecture and visual art===
{{Main|Dravidian Architecture}}
], example of ] bronze has become notable as a symbol of ].]]
]

''Mayamata'' and ''Manasara shilpa'' texts estimated to be in circulation by the 5th to 7th century AD, are guidebooks on the Dravidian style of ] design, construction, sculpture and joinery technique.<ref name=stellakramrisch76>Stella Kramrisch (1976), The Hindu Temple Volume 1 & 2, {{ISBN|81-208-0223-3}}</ref><ref>Tillotson, G. H. R. (1997). Svastika Mansion: A Silpa-Sastra in the 1930s. South Asian Studies, 13(1), pp 87–97</ref> ''Isanasivagurudeva paddhati'' is another text from the 9th century describing the art of building in India in south and central India.<ref name=stellakramrisch76/><ref>{{cite book |last=Sastri |first=Ganapati |year=1920 |title=Īśānaśivagurudeva paddhati |series=Trivandrum Sanskrit Series |oclc=71801033}}</ref> In north India, ''Brihat-samhita'' by ] is the widely cited ancient Sanskrit manual from the 6th century describing the design and construction of ''Nagara''-style Hindu temples.<ref name=mmgeometry>{{cite journal |last=Meister |first=Michael W. |author-link=Michael W. Meister |year=1983 |title=Geometry and Measure in Indian Temple Plans: Rectangular Temples |journal=Artibus Asiae |volume=44 |issue=4 |pages=266–296 |doi=10.2307/3249613 |jstor=3249613}}</ref><ref name=hgood>{{cite book |last=Elgood |first=Heather |year=2000 |title=Hinduism and the Religious Arts |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |pages=121–125 |isbn=978-0304707393}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Kern |editor-first=H. |year=1865 |title=The Brhat Sanhita of Varaha-mihara |url=http://www.wilbourhall.org/pdfs/BrhatSamhitaSanskrit.pdf |location=Calcutta |publisher=The Asiatic Society of Bengal }}</ref> Traditional Dravidian architecture and symbolism are also based on Agamas. The Agamas are non-] in origin<ref name="Narasimhachary"/> and have been dated either as post-Vedic texts<ref name="Tripath2001"/> or as pre-Vedic compositions.<ref name="Nagalingam">Nagalingam, Pathmarajah (2009). The Religion of the Agamas. Siddhanta Publications. </ref> The ''Agamas'' are a collection of Tamil and ] ] chiefly constituting the methods of temple construction and creation of '']'', worship means of deities, philosophical doctrines, meditative practices, attainment of sixfold desires and four kinds of yoga.<ref name="Grimes1996"/>

Chola-style temples consist almost invariably of the three following parts, arranged in differing manners, but differing in themselves only according to the age in which they were executed:<ref name=Fergusson>{{cite book |last=Fergusson |first=James |title=History of Indian and Eastern Architecture |orig-year=1910 |edition=3rd |year=1997 |publisher=Low Price Publications |location= New Delhi |page=309}}</ref>
# The porches or ''Mantapas'', which always cover and precede the door leading to the cell.
# Gate-pyramids, ''Gopuras'', which are the principal features in the quadrangular enclosures that surround the more notable temples. Gopuras are very common in Dravidian temples.
# Pillared halls (''Chaultris'' or ''Chawadis'') are used for many purposes and are the invariable accompaniments of these temples.

Besides these, a south Indian temple usually has a tank called the ''Kalyani'' or ''Pushkarni'' – to be used for sacred purposes or the convenience of the priests – dwellings for all the grades of the priesthood are attached to it, and other buildings for state or convenience.<ref name=Fergusson/>

===Theatre, dance and music===
{{Main|Carnatic music|Ancient Tamil music|Music of Kerala|Music of Tamil Nadu|Music of Andhra Pradesh|Cinema of South India}}
] dancer.]]
Literary evidence of traditional form of theatre, dance and music dates back to the 3rd century BCE.<ref name="Nijenhuis 1974">{{citation |last=Nijenhuis |first=Emmie te |author-link=Emmie te Nijenhuis |title=Indian Music: History and Structure |publisher=Brill |place=Leiden |year=1974 |isbn=978-90-04-03978-0}} at pp. 4–5</ref> Ancient literary works, such as the '']'', describe a ].<ref name="Nijenhuis 1974" /> The theatrical culture flourished during the early Sangam age. Theatre-dance traditions have a long and varied history whose origins can be traced back almost two millennia to dance-theatre forms like ''Kotukotti'', Kaapaalam and ''Pandarangam'', which are mentioned in an ancient anthology of poems entitled the ].<ref>{{cite book |last=Vaittiyaliṅkan̲ |first=Ce |year=1977 |title=Fine Arts and Crafts in Pattu-p-pāṭṭu and Eṭṭu-t-tokai |publisher=Annamalai University |page=162 |oclc=4804957}}</ref> Dance forms such as ] are based on older temple dance forms known as ''Catir Kacceri'', as practised by ] and a class of women known as '']''.<ref name=Leslie>Leslie, Julia. '' Roles and rituals for Hindu women'', pp.149–152</ref>

] originated in the Dravidian region. With the growing influence of Persian and Sufi music on Indian music, a clear distinction in style appeared from the 12th century onwards. Many literary works were composed in Carnatic style and it soon spread wide in the Dravidian regions. The most notable Carnatic musician is ] who lived in the court of ] of the ] empire. He formulated the basic structure of Carnatic music and is regarded as the ''Pitamaha'' (''lit'', "father" or the "grandfather") of Carnatic Music. ] is another notable Carnatic musician who was Purandaradasa's contemporary.

Each of the major Dravidian languages has its own film industry like ] (Tamil), ] (Telugu), ] (Kannada), ] (Malayalam). Kollywood and Tollywood produce most films in India.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/Tamil-leads-as-India-tops-film-production/articleshow/21967065.cms |title=Tamil leads as India tops film production |date=22 December 2013 |newspaper=The Times of India |access-date=5 August 2017}}</ref>

===Clothing===
{{Main|Lungi|Sari|Dhoti}}
Dravidian speakers in southern India wear varied traditional costumes depending on their region, largely influenced by local customs and traditions. The most traditional dress for Dravidian men is the ], or the more formal ], called ''veshti'' in Tamil, ''panche'' in Kannada and Telugu, and ''mundu'' in Malayalam. The lungi consists of a colourful checked cotton cloth. Many times these lungis are tube-shaped and tied around the waist, and can be easily tied above the knees for more strenuous activities. The lungi is usually everyday dress, used for doing labour while dhoti is used for more formal occasions. Many villagers have only a lungi as their article of clothing. The dhoti is generally white in colour, and occasionally has a border of red, green or gold. Dhotis are usually made out of cotton for more everyday use, but the more expensive silk dhotis are used for special functions like festivals and weddings.

Traditional dress of Dravidian women is typical of most Indian women, that of the sari. This sari consists of a cloth wrapped around the waist and draped over the shoulder. Originally saris were worn bare, but during the Victorian era, women began wearing blouse (called a ravike) along with sari. In fact, until the late 19th century most Kerala women did not wear any upper garments, or were forced to by law, and in many villages, especially in tribal communities, the sari is worn without the blouse. Unlike Indo-Aryan speakers, most Dravidian women do not cover their head with the pallu except in areas of North Karnataka. Due to the complexity of draping the sari, younger girls start with a skirt called a ''pavada''. When they get older, around the age when puberty begins, they transition to a '']'' or half-sari, which is composed of a skirt tied at the waist along with a cloth draped over a blouse. After adulthood girls begin using the sari. There are many different styles of sari draping varying across regions and communities. Examples are the ], specific to Tamil Brahmin Community, and the ].

===Martial arts and sports===
{{Main|Kalaripayattu|Kuttu Varisai|Varma Kalai|Silambam|Adithada|Malyutham|Traditional games of India}}

In ], ] claimed that southerners are skilled with sword-fighting in general and ] was chosen for the conquest of the southern kingdoms due to his swordsmanship.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m12/m12a100.htm|title=Mahabharata Text}}</ref> In South India various types of martial arts are practised like ] and ].

In ancient times there were '']s'', public duels to the death, to solve disputes between opposing rulers.<ref name="Zarrilli 1998">{{cite book |last=Zarrilli |first=Phillip B. |title=When the Body Becomes All Eyes: Paradigms, Discourses and Practices of Power in Kalaripayattu, a South Indian Martial Art |date=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page= 95 |isbn=978-0-19-563940-7}}</ref> Among some communities, young girls received preliminary training up until the onset of puberty.<ref name="Zarrilli 1998"/> In ''vadakkan pattukal'' ballads, at least a few women warriors continued to practice and achieved a high degree of expertise.<ref name="Zarrilli 1998"/>

Sports like ], ], ], ], ], and ] remain strong among Dravidian ethnic groups.

==See also==
;General
* ]
* ] (dedicated to research and learning of Dravidian languages)

;Culture
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]

;Other
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]

==Notes==
{{Reflist|group=note|2}}


== References == == References ==
{{Reflist|30em}}


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{{Refend}}


==External links== ==External links==
{{Commons category|Dravidian peoples}}
;Origins
* Akhilesh Pillalamarri, ''Where Did Indians Come from'', , ,
* Scroll.in, {{cite web|url=https://scroll.in/article/874102/aryan-migration-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-study-on-indian-genetics|title=Aryan migration: Everything you need to know about the new study on Indian genetics|date=2 April 2018 }}, on Narasimhan (2018)
;Language
* Bhadriraju Krishnamurti, , Encyclopædia Britannica
* , Max-Planck-Gesellschaft


{{Portal bar|India}}
* Article by David Frawley
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Latest revision as of 23:21, 23 December 2024

South Asian ethnolinguistic group For other uses, see Dravidian (disambiguation).

Dravidians
Geographic
distribution
South Asia and parts of Southeast Asia, mainly South India and Sri Lanka
Linguistic classificationOne of the world's primary language families
Proto-languageProto-Dravidian
Subdivisions
  • Northern
  • Central
  • Southern
Language codes
ISO 639-2 / 5dra
Linguasphere49 = (phylozone)
Glottologdrav1251
Distribution of subgroups of Dravidian languages:
  Northern   Central   South-Central   Southern

Ethnic group
Dravidian people
Dravidian speakers in South Asia
Total population
approx. 250 million
Languages
Dravidian languages
Religion
Predominantly Hinduism, Dravidian folk religion and others: Jainism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism
Part of a series on
Dravidian culture and history
OriginIndus Valley Civilisation Keezhadi excavation site
History
Dravidian dynasties
Culture
Language
Religion
Regions
People
Politics

The Dravidian peoples, Dravidian-speakers or Dravidians, are a collection of ethnolinguistic groups native to South Asia who speak Dravidian languages. There are around 250 million native speakers of Dravidian languages. Dravidian speakers form the majority of the population of South India and are natively found in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. Dravidian peoples are also present in Singapore, Mauritius, Malaysia, France, South Africa, Myanmar, East Africa, the Caribbean, and the United Arab Emirates through recent migration.

Proto-Dravidian may have been spoken in the Indus civilization, suggesting a "tentative date of Proto-Dravidian around the early part of the third millennium BCE", after which it branched into various Dravidian languages. South Dravidian I (including pre-Tamil) and South Dravidian II (including pre-Telugu) split around the eleventh century BCE, with the other major branches splitting off at around the same time.

The origins of the Dravidians are a "very complex subject of research and debate". They are regarded as indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, but may have deeper pre-Neolithic roots from Western Asia, specifically from the Iranian plateau. Their origins are often viewed as being connected with the Indus Valley civilisation, hence people and language spread east and southwards after the demise of the Indus Valley Civilisation in the early second millennium BCE, some propose not long before the arrival of Indo-Aryan speakers, with whom they intensively interacted. Though some scholars have argued that the Dravidian languages may have been brought to India by migrations from the Iranian plateau in the fourth or third millennium BCE or even earlier, reconstructed proto-Dravidian vocabulary suggests that the family is indigenous to India.

Genetically, the ancient Indus Valley people were composed of a primarily Iranian hunter-gatherers (or farmers) ancestry, with varying degrees of ancestry from local hunter-gatherer groups. The modern-day Dravidian-speakers are primarily composed of Ancient South Indian hunter-gatherer ancestry and varying levels of Indus Valley Civilisation ancestry, but also carry a small portion of Western Steppe Herder ancestry and may also have additional contributions from local hunter-gatherer groups.

The third century BCE onwards saw the development of many great empires in South India like Pandya, Chola, Chera, Pallava, Satavahana, Chalukya, Kakatiya and Rashtrakuta. Medieval South Indian guilds and trading organisations like the "Ayyavole of Karnataka and Manigramam" played an important role in the Southeast Asia trade, and the cultural Indianisation of the region.

Dravidian visual art is dominated by stylised temple architecture in major centres, and the production of images on stone and bronze sculptures. The sculpture dating from the Chola period has become notable as a symbol of Hinduism. The Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple located in Indian state of Tamil Nadu is often considered as the largest functioning Hindu temple in the world. The temple is built in Dravidian style and occupies an area of 156 acres (631,000 m).

Etymology

Main article: Dravidian languages § Etymology

The origin of the Sanskrit word drāviḍa is Tamil. In Prakrit, words such as "Damela", "Dameda", "Dhamila" and "Damila", which later evolved from "Tamila", could have been used to denote an ethnic identity. In the Sanskrit tradition, the word drāviḍa was also used to denote the geographical region of South India. Epigraphic evidence of an ethnic group termed as such is found in ancient India and Sri Lanka where a number of inscriptions have come to light datable from the 2nd century BCE mentioning Damela or Dameda persons. The Hathigumpha inscription of the Kalinga ruler Kharavela refers to a T(ra)mira samghata (Confederacy of Tamil rulers) dated to 150 BCE. It also mentions that the league of Tamil kingdoms had been in existence for 113 years by that time. In Amaravati in present-day Andhra Pradesh there is an inscription referring to a Dhamila-vaniya (Tamil trader) datable to the 3rd century CE. Another inscription of about the same time in Nagarjunakonda seems to refer to a Damila. A third inscription in Kanheri Caves refers to a Dhamila-gharini (Tamil house-holder). In the Buddhist Jataka story known as Akiti Jataka there is a mention to Damila-rattha (Tamil dynasty).

While the English word Dravidian was first employed by Robert Caldwell in his book of comparative Dravidian grammar based on the usage of the Sanskrit word drāviḍa in the work Tantravārttika by Kumārila Bhaṭṭa, the word drāviḍa in Sanskrit has been historically used to denote geographical regions of southern India as whole. Some theories concern the direction of derivation between tamiḻ and drāviḍa; such linguists as Zvelebil assert that the direction is from tamiḻ to drāviḍa.

Ethnic groups

The largest Dravidian ethnic groups are the Telugus from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the Tamils from Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore, the Kannadigas from Karnataka, the Malayalis from Kerala, and the Tulu people from Karnataka.

Name Subgroup Population Notes
Badagas South Dravidian 133,500 (2011 census) Badagas are found in Tamil Nadu.
Brahuis North Dravidian 700,000 (1996) Brahuis are mostly found in the Balochistan region of Pakistan, with smaller numbers in southwestern Afghanistan.
Chenchus South-Central Dravidian 65,000 Chenchus are found in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Odisha.
Irula South Dravidian 203,382 (2011 census) Irula are found in Tamil Nadu, Kerala
Giraavaru people South Dravidian 0 < 100 (Extinct) Giraavaru people were found in Maldives.
Gondis Central Dravidian 13 million (approx.) Gondi belong to the central Dravidian subgroup. They are spread over the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha. A state named Gondwana was proposed to represent them in India.
Khonds South-Central Dravidian 1,627,486 (2011 census) Khonds are found in Odisha.
Kannadigas South Dravidian 43.7 million Kannadigas are native to Karnataka in India but a considerable population is also found in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Kerala.
Kodavas South Dravidian 160,000 (approx.) Kodavas are native to the Kodagu district.
Koyas Central Dravidian found in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha
Kurukh North Dravidian 3.6 million (approx.) Kurukh are spread over parts of the states of Chhatishgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha. Oraon people of Bhutan and Nepal speak Kurukh, also Kurux, Oraon or Uranw, as their native language.
Kurumbar South Dravidian N/A Kurumbar are found in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
Malayalis South Dravidian 45 million Malayalis are native to Kerala and Lakshadweep, but are also found in Puducherry and parts of Tamil Nadu. They are also found in large numbers in Middle East countries, the Americas and Australia.
Paniya South Dravidian N/A Paniya are found in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Tamils South Dravidian 78 million Tamils are native to Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and northern and eastern Sri Lanka, but are also found in parts of Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, although they have a large diaspora and are also widespread throughout many countries including South Africa, Singapore, the United States of America, Canada, Fiji, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines, Mauritius, European countries, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and Malaysia, as are the other three major Dravidian languages.
Telugus Central Dravidian 85.1 million Telugus are native to Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Yanam (Puducherry), but are also found in parts of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Orissa and Maharashtra. Further, they have a large diaspora and are also widespread throughout many countries including the United States of America, Canada, Australia and European countries. Telugu is the fastest growing language in the United States.
Todas South Dravidian 2,002 (2011 census) Todas are found in Tamil Nadu.
Tuluvas South Dravidian 2 million (approx.) Tuluvas are found in coastal Karnataka and Northern Kerala (Kasaragodu district) in India. A state named Tulu Nadu was proposed to represent them in India.

Language

Main article: Dravidian languages
Dravidian language tree

The Dravidian language family is one of the oldest in the world. Six languages are currently recognized by India as Classical languages and four of them are Dravidian languages Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

The most commonly spoken Dravidian languages are Telugu (తెలుగు), Tamil (தமிழ்), Kannada (ಕನ್ನಡ), Malayalam (മലയാളം), Brahui (براہوئی), Tulu (തുളു), Gondi and Coorg. There are three subgroups within the Dravidian language family: North Dravidian, Central Dravidian, and South Dravidian, matching for the most part the corresponding regions in the Indian subcontinent.

Dravidian grammatical impact on the structure and syntax of Indo-Aryan languages is considered far greater than the Indo-Aryan grammatical impact on Dravidian. Some linguists explain this anomaly by arguing that Middle Indo-Aryan and New Indo-Aryan were built on a Dravidian substratum. There are also hundreds of Dravidian loanwords in Indo-Aryan languages, and vice versa.

According to David McAlpin and his Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis, the Dravidian languages were brought to India by immigration into India from Elam (not to be confused with Eelam), located in present-day southwestern Iran. In the 1990s, Renfrew and Cavalli-Sforza have also argued that Proto-Dravidian was brought to India by farmers from the Iranian part of the Fertile Crescent, but more recently Heggerty and Renfrew noted that "McAlpin's analysis of the language data, and thus his claims, remain far from orthodoxy", adding that Fuller finds no relation of Dravidian language with other languages, and thus assumes it to be native to India. Renfrew and Bahn conclude that several scenarios are compatible with the data, and that "the linguistic jury is still very much out."

As a proto-language, the Proto-Dravidian language is not itself attested in the historical record. Its modern conception is based solely on reconstruction. It is suggested that the language was spoken in the 4th millennium BCE, and started disintegrating into various branches around 3rd millennium BCE. According to Krishnamurti, Proto-Dravidian may have been spoken in the Indus civilisation, suggesting a "tentative date of Proto-Dravidian around the early part of the third millennium." Krishnamurti further states that South Dravidian I (including pre-Tamil) and South Dravidian II (including pre-Telugu) split around the eleventh century BCE, with the other major branches splitting off at around the same time.

History

Origins

See also: History of Dravidian languages, Proto-Dravidian, Dravidian homeland, Neolithic revolution, Fertile Crescent, Demic diffusion, Origins of Mehrgahr, Demic diffusion, and Mehrgarh § Origins
The Dancing Girl, a prehistoric bronze sculpture made in approximately 2500 BCE in the Indus Valley civilisation city of Mohenjo-daro.

The origins of the Dravidians are a "very complex subject of research and debate". They are regarded as indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, but may have deeper pre-Neolithic roots from Western Asia, specifically from the Iranian plateau. Their origins are often viewed as being connected with the Indus Valley civilisation, hence people and language spread east and southwards after the demise of the Indus Valley Civilisation in the early second millennium BCE, some propose not long before the arrival of Indo-Aryan speakers, with whom they intensively interacted. Though some scholars have argued that the Dravidian languages may have been brought to India by migrations from the Iranian plateau in the fourth or third millennium BCE or even earlier, reconstructed proto-Dravidian vocabulary suggests that the family is indigenous to India.

Genetically, the ancient Indus Valley people were composed of a primarily Iranian hunter-gatherers (or farmers) ancestry, with varying degrees of ancestry from local hunter-gatherer groups. The modern-day Dravidian-speakers display a similar genetic makeup, but also carry a small portion of Western Steppe Herder ancestry and may also have additional contributions from local hunter-gatherer groups.

Although in modern times speakers of various Dravidian languages have mainly occupied the southern portion of India, Dravidian speakers must have been widespread throughout the Indian subcontinent before the Indo-Aryan migration into the subcontinent. According to Horen Tudu, "many academic researchers have attempted to connect the Dravidians with the remnants of the great Indus Valley civilisation, located in Northwestern India... but t is mere speculation that the Dravidians are the ensuing post–Indus Valley settlement of refugees into South and Central India." The most noteworthy scholar making such claims is Asko Parpola, who did extensive research on the IVC-scripts. The Brahui population of Balochistan in Pakistan has been taken by some as the linguistic equivalent of a relict population, perhaps indicating that Dravidian languages were formerly much more widespread and were supplanted by the incoming Indo-Aryan languages.

Asko Parpola, who regards the Harappans to have been Dravidian, notes that Mehrgarh (7000–2500 BCE), to the west of the Indus River valley, is a precursor of the Indus Valley Civilisation, whose inhabitants migrated into the Indus Valley and became the Indus Valley Civilisation. It is one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming and herding in South Asia. According to Lukacs and Hemphill, while there is a strong continuity between the neolithic and chalcolithic (Copper Age) cultures of Mehrgarh, dental evidence shows that the chalcolithic population did not descend from the neolithic population of Mehrgarh, which "suggests moderate levels of gene flow". They further noted that "the direct lineal descendants of the Neolithic inhabitants of Mehrgarh are to be found to the south and the east of Mehrgarh, in northwestern India and the western edge of the Deccan plateau", with neolithic Mehrgarh showing greater affinity with chalocolithic Inamgaon, south of Mehrgarh, than with chalcolithic Mehrgarh.

Indus Valley Civilization

Main articles: Indus valley civilisation and Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit
The Pashupati seal from the Indus Valley Civilization
Dravidian identification

The Indus Valley civilisation (2,600–1,900 BCE) located in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent is sometimes identified as having been Dravidian. Already in 1924, when announcing the discovery of the IVC, John Marshall stated that (one of) the language(s) may have been Dravidic. Cultural and linguistic similarities have been cited by researchers Henry Heras, Kamil Zvelebil, Asko Parpola and Iravatham Mahadevan as being strong evidence for a proto-Dravidian origin of the ancient Indus Valley civilisation. The discovery in Tamil Nadu of a late Neolithic (early 2nd millennium BCE, i.e. post-dating Harappan decline) stone celt allegedly marked with Indus signs has been considered by some to be significant for the Dravidian identification.

Yuri Knorozov surmised that the symbols represent a logosyllabic script and suggested, based on computer analysis, an agglutinative Dravidian language as the most likely candidate for the underlying language. Knorozov's suggestion was preceded by the work of Henry Heras, who suggested several readings of signs based on a proto-Dravidian assumption.

Linguist Asko Parpola writes that the Indus script and Harappan language are "most likely to have belonged to the Dravidian family". Parpola led a Finnish team in investigating the inscriptions using computer analysis. Based on a proto-Dravidian assumption, they proposed readings of many signs, some agreeing with the suggested readings of Heras and Knorozov (such as equating the "fish" sign with the Dravidian word for fish, "min") but disagreeing on several other readings. A comprehensive description of Parpola's work until 1994 is given in his book Deciphering the Indus Script.

Decline, migration and Dravidianization

Paleoclimatologists believe the fall of the Indus Valley Civilisation and eastward migration during the late Harappan period was due to climate change in the region, with a 200-year long drought being the major factor. The Indus Valley Civilisation seemed to slowly lose their urban cohesion, and their cities were gradually abandoned during the late Harappan period, followed by eastward migrations before the Indo-Aryan migration into the Indian subcontinent.

The process of post-Harappan/Dravidian influences on southern India has tentatively been called "Dravidianization", and is reflected in the post-Harappan mixture of IVC and Ancient Ancestral South Indian people. Yet, according to Krishnamurti, Dravidian languages may have reached south India before Indo-Aryan migrations.

Dravidian and Indo-Aryan interactions

Dravidian substrate

The Dravidian language influenced the Indo-Aryan languages. Dravidian languages show extensive lexical (vocabulary) borrowing, but only a few traits of structural (either phonological or grammatical) borrowing from Indo-Aryan, whereas Indo-Aryan shows more structural than lexical borrowings from the Dravidian languages. Many of these features are already present in the oldest known Indo-Aryan language, the language of the Rigveda (c. 1500 BCE), which also includes over a dozen words borrowed from Dravidian. The linguistic evidence for Dravidian impact grows stronger as we move from the Samhitas down through the later Vedic works and into the classical post-Vedic literature. This represents an early religious and cultural fusion or synthesis between ancient Dravidians and Indo-Aryans.

According to Mallory there are an estimated thirty to forty Dravidian loanwords in Rig Veda. Some of those for which Dravidian etymologies are certain include ಕುಲಾಯ kulāya "nest", ಕುಲ್ಫ kulpha "ankle", ದಂಡ daṇḍa "stick", ಕುಲ kūla "slope", ಬಿಲ bila "hollow", ಖಲ khala "threshing floor". While J. Bloch and M. Witzel believe that the Indo-Aryans moved into an already Dravidian-speaking area after the oldest parts of the Rig Veda were already composed.

According to Thomason and Kaufman, there is strong evidence that Dravidian influenced Indic through "shift", that is, native Dravidian speakers learning and adopting Indic languages. According to Erdosy, the most plausible explanation for the presence of Dravidian structural features in Old Indo-Aryan is that the majority of early Old Indo-Aryan speakers had a Dravidian mother tongue which they gradually abandoned. Erdosy (1995:18) Even though the innovative traits in Indic could be explained by multiple internal explanations, early Dravidian influence is the only explanation that can account for all of the innovations at once. Early Dravidian influence accounts for several of the innovative traits in Indic better than any internal explanation that has been proposed. According to Zvelebil, "several scholars have demonstrated that pre-Indo-Aryan and pre-Dravidian bilingualism in India provided conditions for the far-reaching influence of Dravidian on the Indo-Aryan tongues in the spheres of phonology, syntax and vocabulary."

Sanskritization

With the rise of the Kuru Kingdom a process of Sanskritization started which influenced all of India, with the populations of the north of the Indian subcontinent predominantly speaking the Indo-Aryan languages.

Dravidian kingdoms and empires

The third century BCE onwards saw the development of large Dravidian empires like Chola, Pandya, Rashtrakuta, Vijayanagara, Chalukyas Western Chalukya, and kingdoms like Chera, Chutu, Ay, Alupa, Pallava, Hoysala, Western Ganga, Eastern Ganga, Kadamba, Kalabhra, Andhra Ikshvaku, Vishnukundina, Eastern Chalukya, Sena, Kakatiya, Reddy, Mysore, Jaffna, Mysore, Travancore, Venad, Cochin, Cannanore, Calicut and the Nayakas.

Medieval trade and influence

Medieval Tamil guilds and trading organisations like the Ayyavole and Manigramam played an important role in the southeast Asia trade. Traders and religious leaders travelled to southeast Asia and played an important role in the cultural Indianisation of the region. Locally developed scripts such as Grantha and Pallava script induced the development of many native scripts such as Khmer, Javanese Kawi, Baybayin, and Thai.

Around this time, Dravidians encountered Muslim traders, and the first Tamil Muslims and Sri Lankan Moors appeared.

European contact (1500 onward)

Portuguese explorers like Vasco de Gama were motivated to expand mainly for the spice markets of Calicut (today called Kozhikode) in modern-day Kerala. This led to the establishment of a series of Portuguese colonies along the western coasts of Karnataka and Kerala, including Mangalore. During this time Portuguese Jesuit priests also arrived and converted a small number of people in modern Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to Catholicism, most notably the Paravars.

Dravidian culture

Religious belief

See also: Dravidian folk religion, Hinduism, Śramaṇa, Jainism, Buddhism, Charvaka, Ājīvika, and Indus Valley Civilization

Ancient Dravidian religion constituted of an animistic and non-Vedic form of religion which may have influenced the Āgamas, Vedic and non-Vedic texts which post-date the Vedic texts. The Agamas are Tamil and Sanskrit scriptures chiefly constituting the methods of temple construction and creation of murti, worship means of deities, philosophical doctrines, meditative practices, attainment of sixfold desires and four kinds of yoga. The worship of village deities, as well as sacred flora and fauna in Hinduism is recognised as a survival of the pre-Vedic Dravidian religion. Hinduism can be regarded as a religious and cultural fusion or synthesis between ancient Dravidians and Indo-Aryans, and other local elements.

Sage Agastya, father of Tamil literature

Ancient Tamil grammatical works Tolkappiyam, the ten anthologies Pattuppāṭṭu, and the eight anthologies Eṭṭuttokai shed light on early ancient Dravidian religion. Murugan (also known as Seyyon) was glorified as the red god seated on the blue peacock, who is ever young and resplendent, as the favoured god of the Tamils. Sivan was also seen as the supreme God. Early iconography of Murugan and Sivan and their association with native flora and fauna goes back to the Indus Valley Civilisation. The Sangam landscape was classified into five categories, thinais, based on the mood, the season and the land. Tolkappiyam mentions that each of these thinai had an associated deity such as Seyyon in Kurinji (hills), Thirumaal in Mullai (forests), and Kotravai in Marutham (plains), and Wanji-ko in the Neithal (coasts and seas). Other gods mentioned were Mayyon and Vaali, now identified with Krishna and Balarama, who are all major deities in Hinduism today. This represents an early religious and cultural fusion or synthesis between ancient Dravidians and Indo-Aryans, which became more evident over time with sacred iconography, traditions, philosophy, flora and fauna that went on to influence and shape Indian civilisation.

Meenakshi Amman temple, dedicated to Goddess Meenakshi, tutelary deity of Madurai city

Throughout Tamilakam, a king was considered to be divine by nature and possessed religious significance. The king was 'the representative of God on earth' and lived in a "koyil", which means the "residence of a god". The Modern Tamil word for temple is koil (Tamil: கோயில்). Ritual worship was also given to kings. Modern words for god like "kō" (Tamil: கோ "king"), "iṟai" (இறை "emperor") and "āṇḍavar" (ஆண்டவன் "conqueror") now primarily refer to gods. These elements were incorporated later into Hinduism like the legendary marriage of Shiva to Queen Mīnātchi who ruled Madurai or Wanji-ko, a god who later merged into Indra. Tolkappiyar refers to the Three Crowned Kings as the "Three Glorified by Heaven", (Tamil: வாண்புகழ் மூவர், Vāṉpukaḻ Mūvar). In Dravidian-speaking South India, the concept of divine kingship led to the assumption of major roles by state and temple.

The cult of the mother goddess is treated as an indication of a society which venerated femininity. This mother goddess was conceived as a virgin, one who has given birth to all and one, and were typically associated with Shaktism. The temples of the Sangam days, mainly of Madurai, seem to have had priestesses to the deity, which also appears predominantly as a goddess. In the Sangam literature, there is an elaborate description of the rites performed by the Kurava priestess in the shrine Palamutircholai.

Among the early Dravidians, the practice of erecting memorial stones, Natukal and Viragal, had appeared, and it continued for quite a long time after the Sangam age, down to about the 16th century. It was customary for people who sought victory in war to worship these hero stones to bless them with victory.

Architecture and visual art

Main article: Dravidian Architecture
Nataraja, example of Chola Empire bronze has become notable as a symbol of Hinduism.
Typical layout of Dravidian temple architecture, 9th century A.D

Mayamata and Manasara shilpa texts estimated to be in circulation by the 5th to 7th century AD, are guidebooks on the Dravidian style of Vastu Shastra design, construction, sculpture and joinery technique. Isanasivagurudeva paddhati is another text from the 9th century describing the art of building in India in south and central India. In north India, Brihat-samhita by Varāhamihira is the widely cited ancient Sanskrit manual from the 6th century describing the design and construction of Nagara-style Hindu temples. Traditional Dravidian architecture and symbolism are also based on Agamas. The Agamas are non-Vedic in origin and have been dated either as post-Vedic texts or as pre-Vedic compositions. The Agamas are a collection of Tamil and Sanskrit scriptures chiefly constituting the methods of temple construction and creation of murti, worship means of deities, philosophical doctrines, meditative practices, attainment of sixfold desires and four kinds of yoga.

Chola-style temples consist almost invariably of the three following parts, arranged in differing manners, but differing in themselves only according to the age in which they were executed:

  1. The porches or Mantapas, which always cover and precede the door leading to the cell.
  2. Gate-pyramids, Gopuras, which are the principal features in the quadrangular enclosures that surround the more notable temples. Gopuras are very common in Dravidian temples.
  3. Pillared halls (Chaultris or Chawadis) are used for many purposes and are the invariable accompaniments of these temples.

Besides these, a south Indian temple usually has a tank called the Kalyani or Pushkarni – to be used for sacred purposes or the convenience of the priests – dwellings for all the grades of the priesthood are attached to it, and other buildings for state or convenience.

Theatre, dance and music

Main articles: Carnatic music, Ancient Tamil music, Music of Kerala, Music of Tamil Nadu, Music of Andhra Pradesh, and Cinema of South India
A Kuchipudi dancer.

Literary evidence of traditional form of theatre, dance and music dates back to the 3rd century BCE. Ancient literary works, such as the Cilappatikaram, describe a system of music. The theatrical culture flourished during the early Sangam age. Theatre-dance traditions have a long and varied history whose origins can be traced back almost two millennia to dance-theatre forms like Kotukotti, Kaapaalam and Pandarangam, which are mentioned in an ancient anthology of poems entitled the Kaliththokai. Dance forms such as Bharatanatyam are based on older temple dance forms known as Catir Kacceri, as practised by courtesans and a class of women known as Devadasis.

Carnatic music originated in the Dravidian region. With the growing influence of Persian and Sufi music on Indian music, a clear distinction in style appeared from the 12th century onwards. Many literary works were composed in Carnatic style and it soon spread wide in the Dravidian regions. The most notable Carnatic musician is Purandara Dasa who lived in the court of Krishnadevaraya of the Vijayanagara empire. He formulated the basic structure of Carnatic music and is regarded as the Pitamaha (lit, "father" or the "grandfather") of Carnatic Music. Kanakadasa is another notable Carnatic musician who was Purandaradasa's contemporary.

Each of the major Dravidian languages has its own film industry like Kollywood (Tamil), Tollywood (Telugu), Sandalwood (Kannada), Mollywood (Malayalam). Kollywood and Tollywood produce most films in India.

Clothing

Main articles: Lungi, Sari, and Dhoti

Dravidian speakers in southern India wear varied traditional costumes depending on their region, largely influenced by local customs and traditions. The most traditional dress for Dravidian men is the lungi, or the more formal dhoti, called veshti in Tamil, panche in Kannada and Telugu, and mundu in Malayalam. The lungi consists of a colourful checked cotton cloth. Many times these lungis are tube-shaped and tied around the waist, and can be easily tied above the knees for more strenuous activities. The lungi is usually everyday dress, used for doing labour while dhoti is used for more formal occasions. Many villagers have only a lungi as their article of clothing. The dhoti is generally white in colour, and occasionally has a border of red, green or gold. Dhotis are usually made out of cotton for more everyday use, but the more expensive silk dhotis are used for special functions like festivals and weddings.

Traditional dress of Dravidian women is typical of most Indian women, that of the sari. This sari consists of a cloth wrapped around the waist and draped over the shoulder. Originally saris were worn bare, but during the Victorian era, women began wearing blouse (called a ravike) along with sari. In fact, until the late 19th century most Kerala women did not wear any upper garments, or were forced to by law, and in many villages, especially in tribal communities, the sari is worn without the blouse. Unlike Indo-Aryan speakers, most Dravidian women do not cover their head with the pallu except in areas of North Karnataka. Due to the complexity of draping the sari, younger girls start with a skirt called a pavada. When they get older, around the age when puberty begins, they transition to a langa voni or half-sari, which is composed of a skirt tied at the waist along with a cloth draped over a blouse. After adulthood girls begin using the sari. There are many different styles of sari draping varying across regions and communities. Examples are the Madisar, specific to Tamil Brahmin Community, and the Mundum Neriyathum.

Martial arts and sports

Main articles: Kalaripayattu, Kuttu Varisai, Varma Kalai, Silambam, Adithada, Malyutham, and Traditional games of India

In Mahabharata, Bhishma claimed that southerners are skilled with sword-fighting in general and Sahadeva was chosen for the conquest of the southern kingdoms due to his swordsmanship. In South India various types of martial arts are practised like Kalaripayattu and Silambam.

In ancient times there were ankams, public duels to the death, to solve disputes between opposing rulers. Among some communities, young girls received preliminary training up until the onset of puberty. In vadakkan pattukal ballads, at least a few women warriors continued to practice and achieved a high degree of expertise.

Sports like kambala, jallikattu, kabaddi, vallam kali, lambs and tigers, and maramadi remain strong among Dravidian ethnic groups.

See also

General
Culture
Other

Notes

  1. Derenko: "The spread of these new technologies has been associated with the dispersal of Dravidian and Indo-European languages in southern Asia. It is hypothesized that the proto-Elamo-Dravidian language, most likely originated in the Elam province in southwestern Iran, spread eastwards with the movement of farmers to the Indus Valley and the Indian sub-continent."

    Derenko refers to:
    * Renfrew (1987), Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins
    * Renfrew (1996), Language families and the spread of farming. In: Harris DR, editor, The origins and spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia, pp. 70–92
    * Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi, Piazza (1994), The History and Geography of Human Genes.
  2. ^ Lockard: "The encounters that resulted from Aryan migration brought together several very different peoples and cultures, reconfiguring Indian society. Over many centuries a fusion of Aryan and Dravidian occurred, a complex process that historians have labeled the Indo-Aryan synthesis." Lockard: "Hinduism can be seen historically as a synthesis of Aryan beliefs with Harappan and other Dravidian traditions that developed over many centuries."

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