The damage wrought by Bishop Robert Caldwell (1814-1891) on Indian History is immense, as his Dravidian race theory came as a counterpoint to the discredited Aryan race theory. Both constructs are equally damaging and have been proven false. The “Dravidians,” the theory of Caldwell goes, were the original inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent and were driven to southern India by the invading, lighter skinned and racially different “Aryans.”
Caldwell came from a poor family of Scottish Presbyterian parents in Ireland and had a miserable childhood. He was unable to find a quality education or a job. The family moved to Glasgow where he started working at the age of nine. Mostly self-taught, he returned to Ireland age of 15, living with an older brother in Dublin while studying art between 1829 and 1833. He then returned to Glasgow, probably as a consequence of a crisis of faith, and he became active in the Congregational church. (1)
Caldwell won a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford only to find it rescinded when the authorities discovered that he had been born in Ireland. He responded by joining the London Missionary Society, which sent him to the University of Glasgow for training. There Caldwell came under the influence of Daniel Keyte Sandford, a professor of Greek and promoter of Anglicanism whose innovative research encouraged Caldwell's liking for comparative philology and also theology. Caldwell left university with a distinction and was ordained as a Congregationalist minister. (2)
He came to India to eke out a living and ultimately settled by marrying the daughter of his patron. At 24, Caldwell arrived in Madras on 8 January 1838 as a missionary of the London Missionary Society and later joined the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Mission (SPG). To further his missionary objectives, Caldwell realized that he had to be proficient in Tamil to proselytize the masses and he began a systematic study of the language. He was consecrated Bishop of Tirunelveli in 1877. In 1844, Caldwell married Eliza Mault (1822–99) in Nagercoil, (3) with whom he had seven children. Eliza Mault, born in Nagercoil, was the younger daughter of the veteran Travancore missionary, Reverend Charles Mault (1791–1858) of the London Missionary Society. For more than forty years, Eliza worked in Idaiyangudi and Tirunelveli proselytizing the people, especially Tamil-speaking women. (4)
Caldwell won a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford only to find it rescinded when the authorities discovered that he had been born in Ireland. He responded by joining the London Missionary Society, which sent him to the University of Glasgow for training. There Caldwell came under the influence of Daniel Keyte Sandford, a professor of Greek and promoter of Anglicanism whose innovative research encouraged Caldwell's liking for comparative philology and also theology. Caldwell left university with a distinction and was ordained as a Congregationalist minister. (2)
He came to India to eke out a living and ultimately settled by marrying the daughter of his patron. At 24, Caldwell arrived in Madras on 8 January 1838 as a missionary of the London Missionary Society and later joined the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Mission (SPG). To further his missionary objectives, Caldwell realized that he had to be proficient in Tamil to proselytize the masses and he began a systematic study of the language. He was consecrated Bishop of Tirunelveli in 1877. In 1844, Caldwell married Eliza Mault (1822–99) in Nagercoil, (3) with whom he had seven children. Eliza Mault, born in Nagercoil, was the younger daughter of the veteran Travancore missionary, Reverend Charles Mault (1791–1858) of the London Missionary Society. For more than forty years, Eliza worked in Idaiyangudi and Tirunelveli proselytizing the people, especially Tamil-speaking women. (4)
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| Robert Caldwell |
His studies of the vernacular languages led him to author A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of Languages, in 1856. A reading of this shoddy work and a quick look into the index is enough to understand the uselessness of the book. Almost 40% of the book's content is unrelated to the subject matter. Then, 15% of it is completely unrelated, and this was expanded to 28% in the next version which came a year later.
In his book, Caldwell proposed that there are Dravidian words in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the archaic Greek language, and the places named by Ptolemy. (5) In the book Caldwell wrote, he identified south Indian Brahmins with Indo-Europeans, which was partly based on his belief that the Indo-Europeans had "higher mental gifts and higher capacity for civilisation". (6) Caldwell asserted that the low-caste Chanar were not merely Tamil speakers but an "indigenous Dravidian" people, distinct ethnically and, most critically for him, religiously, from their high-caste oppressors, whom he referred to as "Brahmanical Aryans" (in this case "Aryan" as an ethnic signifier for foreign and "Brahmanical" to signify the "Hinduism" of the high-caste). (7) These wildly speculative claims, well outside the scope of linguistics, were intended "to develop a history which asserted that the indigenous Dravidians had been subdued and colonized by the Brahmanical Aryans". However, the first edition of Caldwell's grammar was "met with firm resistance" by the Chanars precisely because they "did not like the idea of being divorced from Brahmanical civilization", the very division Caldwell was hoping to exploit. (8)
While serving as Bishop of Tirunelveli, alongside Edward Sargent, Caldwell, who was not a trained archaeologist, did much original research on the history of Tirunelveli. He studied palm leaf manuscripts and Sangam literature in his search, and made several excavations, finding the foundations of ancient buildings, sepulchral urns and coins with the fish emblem of the Pandyan Kingdom. This work resulted in his book, A Political and General History of the District of Tinnevely (1881), published by the Government of the Madras Presidency.
Caldwell’s mission lasted more than fifty years. The publication of his propaganda into both the languages and the history of the region, coupled with his position in both Indian and English society, gave stimulus to the revival of the Non-Brahmin movement. (9) Meanwhile, on the difficult ground for evangelism, Caldwell achieved Christian conversion among the lower castes. He had adopted some of the methods of the Lutheran missionaries of earlier times, having learned German purely to study their practices. (10)
His book has been described as being on occasion "pejorative, outrageous, and somewhat paternalistic". (11) An in-depth reading of what he wrote will reveal to us that he was inventing a theory to convert the Dravidians to Christianity. While evangelists like Moniere Williams demanded that English missionaries learn Sanskrit as the link language, Caldwell found that the lower castes in South India have nothing to do with Sanskrit. So, he tried to falsely establish that the tribal demographic entities don't have any religion. Since they don't have any religion, they are welcome to embrace Christianity and thus have a religion!
He writes in the book: (12)
"Sanscrit, though it never was the vernacular language of any district of the country in the South, is in every district read and to some extent understood by the majority of the Brahmans,—the descendants of those Brahmanical colonists of early times to whom the Dravidians are indebted for the higher arts of life and the first elements of literary culture.
Without evidence, he hints not just at colonization but at forced conversion to the Brahminical religion:
"Neither English, however, nor any other foreign tongue, has the slightest chance of becoming the vernacular speech of any portion of the inhabitants of Southern India. The indigenous Dravidian languages, which have maintained their ground for more than two thousand years against Sanscrit, the language of a numerous, powerful, and venerated sacerdotal race, may be expected successfully to resist the encroachments of every other tongue."
He claims to have invented the expression Dravidian Languages, though he says, before, they were called Tamulian Languages by some authors. His argument is: "This family which I style Dravidian has been styled ‘Tamulian’ by some recent writers; but though the Tamil is the oldest and most highly cultivated member of the family, and that which contains the largest proportion of the family property of forms and roots, yet as it is one dialect out of many, and does not claim to be the original speech from which the other dialects have been derived; as it is also desirable to reserve the terms ‘ Tamil’ and ‘ Tamilian ’ (or as it is generally but erroneously written ‘Tamulian') to denote the Tamil language itself and the people by whom it is spoken, I have preferred to designate this entire family by a term which is capable of a wider application. The word I have chosen is ‘Dravidian,’ a word which has already been used as the generic appellation of this family of tongues by the Sanscrit geographers."
And, as part of the diabolical design, he declares that the geographical connotation of Dravida is not geographic but linguistic, and the Indians are wrong to declare Maratha and Gujarata as Dravida! But in a quick turn, he transforms Dravida into a geographical entity:
"Properly speaking, the term ‘Dravida’ denotes the Tamil country alone (including Malayalam), and Tamil Brahmans have usually styled ‘Dravida Brahmans.’ ‘Dravida’ means the ‘country of the Dravidas and a Dravida is defined in the Sanscrit lexicons to be a man of an outcast tribe, descended from a degraded Kshatriya. This name was doubtless applied by the Brahmanical inhabitants of Northern India to the aborigines of the extreme South before the introduction amongst them of Brahmanical civilisation and is evidence of the low estimation in which they were originally held. In the Maha-Bharata, in which the Dravidas are distinguished from the Cholas, or Tanjore Tamilians, the term is still further restricted to the Pandiyas of Madura, doubtless on account of the advanced civilisation and early celebrity of the Pandiya kingdom. The term ‘ Dravidian’ is thus in itself as restricted as that of ‘ Tamilian, but it has the advantage of being remoter’ from ordinary usage, and somewhat vaguer, and the further and more special advantage of being the term already adopted by Sanscrit writers to designate the southern family of languages. Consequently, by the adoption of this more generic terra, the word “ Tamilian’’ has been left to signify that which is distinctively Tamil. The word “ Tamilian’’ has been left to signify that which is distinctively Tamil. The word “ Tamilian’’ has been left to signify that which is distinctively Tamil, and the further and more special advantage of being the term already adopted by Sanscrit writers to designate the southern family of languages. Consequently, by the adoption of this more generic terra, the word “ Tamilian’’ has been left to signify that which is distinctively Tamil.
"The five Dravidas or Draviras, according to the Pandits, are “the Telinga, the Karnataka, the Maratha, the Gurjara, and the Dravira,” or Tamil proper. The Maratha and Gurjara are erroneously included in this enumeration. The Marathi indeed contains a small admixture of Dravidian roots and idioms, as might be expected from its local proximity to the Telugu and the Canarese; and both it and the Gurjara, or Gujarathi, possess certain features of resemblance to the languages of the South, which are possibly derived from the same or a similar source; but, notwithstanding the existence of a few analogies of this nature, those two languages differ from the Dravidian family so widely and radically, and are so closely allied to the northern group, that there cannot be any hesitation in transferring them to that class."
He has not cited the source of the pandits, who are said to have included Gujaratis and Maratis, among the Dravidas. He says, "Dravida is defined in the Sanscrit lexicons to be a man of an outcast tribe, descended from a degraded Kshatriya." Again, what is the source? Caldwell is misleading the people with evil intentions. The origin of the Sanskrit word drāviḍa is not Sanskrit, but it is Tamil. (13)
While serving as Bishop of Tirunelveli, alongside Edward Sargent, Caldwell, who was not a trained archaeologist, did much original research on the history of Tirunelveli. He studied palm leaf manuscripts and Sangam literature in his search, and made several excavations, finding the foundations of ancient buildings, sepulchral urns and coins with the fish emblem of the Pandyan Kingdom. This work resulted in his book, A Political and General History of the District of Tinnevely (1881), published by the Government of the Madras Presidency.
Caldwell’s mission lasted more than fifty years. The publication of his propaganda into both the languages and the history of the region, coupled with his position in both Indian and English society, gave stimulus to the revival of the Non-Brahmin movement. (9) Meanwhile, on the difficult ground for evangelism, Caldwell achieved Christian conversion among the lower castes. He had adopted some of the methods of the Lutheran missionaries of earlier times, having learned German purely to study their practices. (10)
His book has been described as being on occasion "pejorative, outrageous, and somewhat paternalistic". (11) An in-depth reading of what he wrote will reveal to us that he was inventing a theory to convert the Dravidians to Christianity. While evangelists like Moniere Williams demanded that English missionaries learn Sanskrit as the link language, Caldwell found that the lower castes in South India have nothing to do with Sanskrit. So, he tried to falsely establish that the tribal demographic entities don't have any religion. Since they don't have any religion, they are welcome to embrace Christianity and thus have a religion!
He writes in the book: (12)
"Sanscrit, though it never was the vernacular language of any district of the country in the South, is in every district read and to some extent understood by the majority of the Brahmans,—the descendants of those Brahmanical colonists of early times to whom the Dravidians are indebted for the higher arts of life and the first elements of literary culture.
Without evidence, he hints not just at colonization but at forced conversion to the Brahminical religion:
"Neither English, however, nor any other foreign tongue, has the slightest chance of becoming the vernacular speech of any portion of the inhabitants of Southern India. The indigenous Dravidian languages, which have maintained their ground for more than two thousand years against Sanscrit, the language of a numerous, powerful, and venerated sacerdotal race, may be expected successfully to resist the encroachments of every other tongue."
He claims to have invented the expression Dravidian Languages, though he says, before, they were called Tamulian Languages by some authors. His argument is: "This family which I style Dravidian has been styled ‘Tamulian’ by some recent writers; but though the Tamil is the oldest and most highly cultivated member of the family, and that which contains the largest proportion of the family property of forms and roots, yet as it is one dialect out of many, and does not claim to be the original speech from which the other dialects have been derived; as it is also desirable to reserve the terms ‘ Tamil’ and ‘ Tamilian ’ (or as it is generally but erroneously written ‘Tamulian') to denote the Tamil language itself and the people by whom it is spoken, I have preferred to designate this entire family by a term which is capable of a wider application. The word I have chosen is ‘Dravidian,’ a word which has already been used as the generic appellation of this family of tongues by the Sanscrit geographers."
And, as part of the diabolical design, he declares that the geographical connotation of Dravida is not geographic but linguistic, and the Indians are wrong to declare Maratha and Gujarata as Dravida! But in a quick turn, he transforms Dravida into a geographical entity:
"Properly speaking, the term ‘Dravida’ denotes the Tamil country alone (including Malayalam), and Tamil Brahmans have usually styled ‘Dravida Brahmans.’ ‘Dravida’ means the ‘country of the Dravidas and a Dravida is defined in the Sanscrit lexicons to be a man of an outcast tribe, descended from a degraded Kshatriya. This name was doubtless applied by the Brahmanical inhabitants of Northern India to the aborigines of the extreme South before the introduction amongst them of Brahmanical civilisation and is evidence of the low estimation in which they were originally held. In the Maha-Bharata, in which the Dravidas are distinguished from the Cholas, or Tanjore Tamilians, the term is still further restricted to the Pandiyas of Madura, doubtless on account of the advanced civilisation and early celebrity of the Pandiya kingdom. The term ‘ Dravidian’ is thus in itself as restricted as that of ‘ Tamilian, but it has the advantage of being remoter’ from ordinary usage, and somewhat vaguer, and the further and more special advantage of being the term already adopted by Sanscrit writers to designate the southern family of languages. Consequently, by the adoption of this more generic terra, the word “ Tamilian’’ has been left to signify that which is distinctively Tamil. The word “ Tamilian’’ has been left to signify that which is distinctively Tamil. The word “ Tamilian’’ has been left to signify that which is distinctively Tamil, and the further and more special advantage of being the term already adopted by Sanscrit writers to designate the southern family of languages. Consequently, by the adoption of this more generic terra, the word “ Tamilian’’ has been left to signify that which is distinctively Tamil.
"The five Dravidas or Draviras, according to the Pandits, are “the Telinga, the Karnataka, the Maratha, the Gurjara, and the Dravira,” or Tamil proper. The Maratha and Gurjara are erroneously included in this enumeration. The Marathi indeed contains a small admixture of Dravidian roots and idioms, as might be expected from its local proximity to the Telugu and the Canarese; and both it and the Gurjara, or Gujarathi, possess certain features of resemblance to the languages of the South, which are possibly derived from the same or a similar source; but, notwithstanding the existence of a few analogies of this nature, those two languages differ from the Dravidian family so widely and radically, and are so closely allied to the northern group, that there cannot be any hesitation in transferring them to that class."
He has not cited the source of the pandits, who are said to have included Gujaratis and Maratis, among the Dravidas. He says, "Dravida is defined in the Sanscrit lexicons to be a man of an outcast tribe, descended from a degraded Kshatriya." Again, what is the source? Caldwell is misleading the people with evil intentions. The origin of the Sanskrit word drāviḍa is not Sanskrit, but it is Tamil. (13)
In Prakrit, words such as "Damela", "Dameda", "Dhamila" and "Damila", which later evolved from "Tamila", could have been used to denote an ethnic identity. (14) In the Sanskrit tradition, the word drāviḍa was also used to denote the geographical region of South India. (15) Epigraphic evidence of an ethnic group termed as such is found in ancient India where several inscriptions have come to light datable from the 6th to the 5th 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. (16) 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 householder). In the Buddhist Jataka story known as Akiti Jataka, there is a mention of 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, (17) 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 tamiẓ and drāviḍa; such linguists as Zvelebil assert that the direction is from tamiẓ to drāviḍa. (18)
Caldwell further states that Indian scholars were incapable enough of parallel philology. If so, where would he place Tenali Rama, a scholar in nine languages or Rana Kumbha who was able to speak even Telugu?
Caldwell further writes:
"No term belonging to the Dravidian languages themselves has ever been used to designate all the members of this family, nor are the native Tamil or Telugu grammarians, though deeply skilled in the grammar of their own tongues, sufficiently acquainted with comparative grammar to have arrived at the conclusion that all these idioms have a common origin and require to be designated by a common term. Some European scholars who have confined their attention to the study of some Dravidian idioms to the neglect of others have fallen into the same error of supposing these languages independent one of another. The Sanscrit Pandits had a clearer perception of grammatical affinities and differences than the Dravidian grammarians; and, though their generalisation was not perfectly correct, it has furnished us with the only common terms which we possess for denoting the northern and southern families of languages respectively."
Thus, Caldwell's philology is all about how Dravidian languages are not related to Sanskrit and are related to Scythian Languages. His arguments in support of this theory are:
According to him, the Non-Sanskritic part of North Indian Languages is Scythian (?) but the South Indian language is Dravidian. At the same time, the examples he has quoted prove exactly the opposite. Clearly, the only difference here is replacing ma with na.
Caldwell segregates between something called Shen-Tamil and the modern Tamil saying Shen-Tamil is devoid of Sanskrit:
"The ancient or classical dialect of the Tamil language, called the ‘Shen-Tamil,’ or correct Tamil, in which nearly all the literature has been written, contains exceedingly little Sanscrit; and differs from the colloquial dialect, or the language of prose, chiefly in the sedulous and jealous care with which it has rejected the use of Sanscrit derivatives and characters, and restricted itself to pure Dravidian sounds, forms, and roots. So completely has this jealousy of Sanscrit pervaded the minds of the educated classes amongst the Tamilians, that a Tamil composition is regarded as refined, by good taste, and worthy of being called classical, not in proportion to the amount of Sanscrit which it contains, as would be the case in some other dialects, but in proportion to its freedom from Sanscrit!"
Caldwell then cites the Ten Commandments as an example, trying to mislead the people. The Ten Commandments are not sentences or long paragraphs, they are isolated phrases. He writes:
"Let us, for example, compare the amount of Sanscrit which is contained in the Tamil translation of the Ten Commandments (Prayer Book version) with the amount of Latin which is contained in the English version of the same formula, and which has found its way into it, either directly, from Ecclesiastical Latin, or indirectly, through the medium of the Norman-French. Of forty-three nouns and adjectives in the English version twenty-nine are Anglo-Saxon, fourteen are Latin: of fifty-three nouns and adjectives in the Tamil (the difference in idiom causes this difference in the number) thirty-two are Dravidian, twenty-one Sanscrit. Of twenty verbs in English, thirteen are Anglo-Saxon, seven are Latin: of thirty-four verbs in Tamil, twenty-seven are Dravidian, and only seven are Sanscrit. Of the five numerals which are found in English, either in their cardinal or their ordinal shape, all are Anglo-Saxon; of the six numerals found in Tamil, five are Dravidian, one (‘thousand’) is probably Sanscrit. Putting all these numbers together, to ascertain the percentage, I find that in the department of nouns, numerals and verbs, the amount of the foreign element is in both instances the same, viz, as nearly as possible forty-five per cent. In both instances, also, all the pronouns, prepositions, adverbs, and conjunctions, as all the inflexional forms and connecting particles are the property of the native tongue.
"This question of the relation of the Dravidians to the primitive Sudras, or Aryanised Mlechchas, of Northern India, is confessedly involved in obscurity and can be settled only by a more thorough investigation than any that has yet been made of the relation of the Dravidian languages to the Un-Sanscrit element contained in the northern vernaculars. We may, indeed, confidently regard the Dravidians as the earliest inhabitants of India, or at least as the earliest race that entered from the North-West, or crossed the Indus; but it is not so easy to determine whether they were the people whom the Aryans found in possession, or whether they had already been expelled from the northern provinces by the pre-historic irruption of another Scythian race. Some recent inquirers hold the identity of the Dravidians with the primitive Sudras, and much may be said in support of this hypothesis, I am not competent to pronounce a decided opinion on a point which lies so far beyond my own province, but the differences which appear to exist between the Dravidian languages and the Scythian under-stratum of the northern vernaculars induce me to incline to the supposition that the Dravidian idioms belong to an older period of the Scythian speech—the period of the predominance of the Ugro-Finnish languages in Central and Higher Asia, anterior to the westward migration of the Turks and Mongolians. If this supposition is correct, it seems to follow that the progenitors of the Scythian portion of the Sudras and mixed classes now inhabiting the northern and western provinces must have made their way into India subsequently to the Dravidians, and also that they must have thrust out the Dravidians from the greater part of Northern India, before they were in their turn subdued by a new race of invaders.
"By whomsoever, the Dravidians were expelled from Northern India, and through whatever causes soever they were induced to migrate southward, I feel persuaded that it was not by the Aryans that they were expelled. Neither the subjugation of the Cholas, Pandiyas, and other Dravidians by the Aryans, nor the expulsion from Northern India of the races who afterwards became celebrated in the South, as Pandiyas, Cholas, Keralas, Calingas, Andhras, etc., is recognised by any Sanscrit authority, or any Dravidian tradition. Looking at the question from a purely Dravidian point of view, I am convinced that the Dravidians never had any relations with the primitive Aryans but those of a peaceable and friendly character; and that if they were expelled from Northern India, and forced to take refuge in Gondwana and Dandakaranya, the great Dravidian forest, before the dawn of their civilisation, the tribes that subdued and thrust them southwards must have been Pre-Aryans.
"Those Pre-Aryan Scythians, by whom I have been supposing the Dravidians to have been expelled from the northern provinces, are not to be confounded with the Koles, Sontals, Bhills, Doms, and other aboriginal tribes of the North. Possibly these tribes had fled into the forests from the Dravidians before the Pre-Aryan invasion, just as the British had taken refuge in Wales before the Norman conquest. It is also possible that the tribes referred to had never crossed the Indus at all, or occupied Northern India, but had entered it, like the Bhut tribes, by the North-East, and had passed from the jungles and swamps of Lower Bengal to their present abodes,—taking care always to keep on the outside of the boundary line of civilisation. At all events, we cannot suppose that it was through an irruption of those forest tribes that the Dravidians were driven southwards; nor does the Un-Sanscrit element which is contained in the northern vernaculars appear to accord in any degree with the peculiar structure of the Kole languages.
The Scythians were civilized
Caldwell's mad rambling goes on like this throughout the book. His theory is unscientific, politically divisive and built only on absurdities, with a devilish design to convert the lower castes. While the Eurocentric mind brings to Indian history Scythians, describing them as uncivilized people, the fact is the reverse, the Scythians were culturally advanced.
The Scythians were a nomadic people, originally of Iranian stock, known from as early as the 9th century BCE who migrated westward from Central Asia to southern Russia and Ukraine in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. They founded a powerful empire centred on what is now Crimea, and it survived for several centuries before succumbing to the Sarmatians during the period from the 4th century BCE to the 2nd century CE.
Until the 20th century, most of what was known of the history of the Scythians came from the account of them by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who visited their territory. In modern times that record has been expanded chiefly by Russian and other anthropologists excavating kurgans in Tyva and Kazakhstan.
The Scythians were admired for their prowess in war and, in particular, for their horsemanship. The migration of the Scythians from Asia eventually brought them into the territory of the Cimmerians, who had traditionally controlled the Caucasus and the plains north of the Black Sea. In a war that lasted 30 years, the Scythians destroyed the Cimmerians and set themselves up as rulers of an empire stretching from west Persia through Syria and Judaea to the borders of Egypt. The Medes, who ruled Persia, attacked them and drove them out of Anatolia, leaving them finally in control of lands which stretched from the Persian border north through the Kuban and into southern Russia.
The Scythians were remarkable for the complex culture they produced. They developed a class of wealthy aristocrats who left elaborate graves—such as the kurgans in the Valley of the Tsars (or Kings) near Arzhan, 40 miles (60 km) from Kyzyl, Tyva—filled with richly worked articles of gold, as well as beads of turquoise, carnelian, and amber, and many other valuable objects. This class of chieftains, the Royal Scyths, finally established themselves as rulers of the southern Russian and Crimean territories. It is there that the richest, oldest, and most-numerous relics of Scythian civilization have been found. Their power was sufficient to repel an invasion by the Persian king Darius I in about 513 BCE.
The Royal Scyths were headed by a sovereign whose authority was transmitted to his son. Eventually, about the time of Herodotus, the royal family intermarried with the Greeks. In 339 the ruler Ateas was killed at age 90 while fighting Philip II of Macedonia. The community was eventually destroyed in the 2nd century BCE, Palakus being the last sovereign whose name is preserved in history.
The Scythian army was made up of freemen who received no wage other than food and clothing but who could share in booty on the presentation of the head of a slain enemy. Many warriors wore Greek-style bronze helmets and chain-mail jerkins. Their principal weapon was a double-curved bow and trefoil-shaped arrows; their swords were of the Persian type. Every Scythian had at least one personal mount, but the wealthy owned large herds of horses, chiefly Mongolian ponies. Burial customs were elaborate and called for the sacrifice of members of the dead man’s household, including wives, servants, and several horses.
Despite these characteristics, their many exquisite grave goods, notably the animal-style gold artefacts, reveal that the Scythians were also culturally advanced. Further, some gold ornaments thought to have been created by Greeks for the Scythians were shown to have predated their contact with Greek civilization. Thus, the Dravidians cannot have any relation to the Scythians.
Hence, while the only place for the book of Caldwell book is the dustbin of history, in south India, a new identity called Dravidian Christianity is being constructed. It is an opportunistic combination of two myths: the “Dravidian race” and another that purports that early Christianity shaped the major Hindu classics! The Aryan/Dravidian constructs are mutually dependent and have been very successfully used to generate conflict, including violence, as in Sri Lanka in recent years.
The Dravidian race theory of Caldwell and others originated when colonial and evangelical interests used linguistics and ethnic studies to formulate imaginary histories and races. While European scholars like Moniere Williams and Horace Wilson were busy appropriating the Sanskrit classics and exporting Sanskrit manuscripts to England as the heritage of Europeans, British linguists Francis Ellis and Alexander Campbell worked in India to theorize that the south Indian languages belong to a different family than the north Indian ones. Another colonial scholar, Brian Houghton Hodgson, was promoting the term “Tamulian” as a racial construct, describing the so-called aborigines of India as primitive and uncivilized compared to the “foreign Aryans.”
To the colonial interests, Anglican Bishop Caldwell contributed what now flourishes as the “Dravidian” identity. He argued that the south Indian mind was structurally different from the Sanskrit mind. Linguistic speculations were turned into a race theory. He characterized the Dravidians as “ignorant and dense,” accusing the Brahmins — the cunning Aryan agents — of keeping them in shackles through the imposition of Sanskrit and its religion.
His successor, another prolific missionary, Bishop G.U. Pope, started to glorify the Tamil classics era, insisting that its underpinnings were Christianity, not Hinduism. The idea was successfully planted that Hinduism had corrupted the “originally pure” Tamil culture by adding Sanskrit and pagan ideas. It was fed by the theory that in the Indian Ocean there once existed a lost continent called Lemuria, the original homeland of the Dravidians. Accounts glorifying Lemuria were taught as historical facts under British rule because it exacerbated the regional faultlines.
A new religion called “Dravidian Christianity” has been invented through a sudden upsurge of writings designed to “discover” the existence of quasi-Christianity in Tamil history before the coming of the “Aryan” Brahmins. The project is to co-opt Tamil culture, language and literature and systematically cleanse them of Hinduism. Christian interpretations and substitutes are being injected into the most cherished symbols, artefacts and literary works of Tamil Hindu culture.
The preposterous claim is that Tamil classical literature originated in early Christianity. The Tamil classical tradition consists of two great components: an ethical treatise called Thirukural, authored by the great sage Thiruvalluvar, and a sophisticated Vedanta philosophical system called Saiva Siddhanta, which traces its origins to the Vedas and was nurtured by many Tamil savants over the centuries. Dravidian Christianity appropriates both these foundational works, attributing them to Christian influence.
The narrative used is that St. Thomas, the apostle, visited south India and taught Christianity to Thiruvalluvar, who was inspired by Christianity but did not capture St. Thomas’ message accurately. This is often portrayed in fake paintings showing the Thiruvalluvar sitting at the feet of St. Thomas, taking notes. The Indian church has announced archaeological “discoveries” to back the visit of St. Thomas to south India, but it has been confirmed that St Thomas has never been to India. Even the famous Jesuit archaeologist, Father Henry Heras, dismissed the so-called discovery of Thomas’ tomb in Chennai.
Thus, in breaking India, an influential nexus of Christian-funded institutions and scholars, often supported by western governments, are indulging in large-scale manipulations similar to those in colonial times. Sadly, a statue of the eccentric Bishop Robert Caldwell has been erected at Marina beach, by the Church. Now, for some, he is the icon who gave the Tamil people their “true history.”
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, (17) 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 tamiẓ and drāviḍa; such linguists as Zvelebil assert that the direction is from tamiẓ to drāviḍa. (18)
Caldwell further states that Indian scholars were incapable enough of parallel philology. If so, where would he place Tenali Rama, a scholar in nine languages or Rana Kumbha who was able to speak even Telugu?
Caldwell further writes:
"No term belonging to the Dravidian languages themselves has ever been used to designate all the members of this family, nor are the native Tamil or Telugu grammarians, though deeply skilled in the grammar of their own tongues, sufficiently acquainted with comparative grammar to have arrived at the conclusion that all these idioms have a common origin and require to be designated by a common term. Some European scholars who have confined their attention to the study of some Dravidian idioms to the neglect of others have fallen into the same error of supposing these languages independent one of another. The Sanscrit Pandits had a clearer perception of grammatical affinities and differences than the Dravidian grammarians; and, though their generalisation was not perfectly correct, it has furnished us with the only common terms which we possess for denoting the northern and southern families of languages respectively."
Thus, Caldwell's philology is all about how Dravidian languages are not related to Sanskrit and are related to Scythian Languages. His arguments in support of this theory are:
- The Non-Sanskrit part of Dravidian languages is more than the Sanskritic part while in North Indian languages, Sanskrit is in excess.
- Pronouns and numerals, verbal and nominal inflexions, and syntactic arrangement of words are not the same as in Sanskrit.
- The philologists assumed that the Sanskritic words in these languages as a part of the native language though the native scholars made a demarcation.
- The philologists were unaware of the “uncultivated” languages of the Dravidian Family and their language grasp wasn’t able to distinguish between necessities and linguistic “luxuries”.
- Based on comparative grammar, Dravidian Languages should be equated with Scythian Languages and not Sanskritic Languages.
- The oldest language in Dravidian Family is not Shen-Tamil but Old Canarese and Ku(Khond)
According to him, the Non-Sanskritic part of North Indian Languages is Scythian (?) but the South Indian language is Dravidian. At the same time, the examples he has quoted prove exactly the opposite. Clearly, the only difference here is replacing ma with na.
Caldwell segregates between something called Shen-Tamil and the modern Tamil saying Shen-Tamil is devoid of Sanskrit:
"The ancient or classical dialect of the Tamil language, called the ‘Shen-Tamil,’ or correct Tamil, in which nearly all the literature has been written, contains exceedingly little Sanscrit; and differs from the colloquial dialect, or the language of prose, chiefly in the sedulous and jealous care with which it has rejected the use of Sanscrit derivatives and characters, and restricted itself to pure Dravidian sounds, forms, and roots. So completely has this jealousy of Sanscrit pervaded the minds of the educated classes amongst the Tamilians, that a Tamil composition is regarded as refined, by good taste, and worthy of being called classical, not in proportion to the amount of Sanscrit which it contains, as would be the case in some other dialects, but in proportion to its freedom from Sanscrit!"
Caldwell then cites the Ten Commandments as an example, trying to mislead the people. The Ten Commandments are not sentences or long paragraphs, they are isolated phrases. He writes:
"Let us, for example, compare the amount of Sanscrit which is contained in the Tamil translation of the Ten Commandments (Prayer Book version) with the amount of Latin which is contained in the English version of the same formula, and which has found its way into it, either directly, from Ecclesiastical Latin, or indirectly, through the medium of the Norman-French. Of forty-three nouns and adjectives in the English version twenty-nine are Anglo-Saxon, fourteen are Latin: of fifty-three nouns and adjectives in the Tamil (the difference in idiom causes this difference in the number) thirty-two are Dravidian, twenty-one Sanscrit. Of twenty verbs in English, thirteen are Anglo-Saxon, seven are Latin: of thirty-four verbs in Tamil, twenty-seven are Dravidian, and only seven are Sanscrit. Of the five numerals which are found in English, either in their cardinal or their ordinal shape, all are Anglo-Saxon; of the six numerals found in Tamil, five are Dravidian, one (‘thousand’) is probably Sanscrit. Putting all these numbers together, to ascertain the percentage, I find that in the department of nouns, numerals and verbs, the amount of the foreign element is in both instances the same, viz, as nearly as possible forty-five per cent. In both instances, also, all the pronouns, prepositions, adverbs, and conjunctions, as all the inflexional forms and connecting particles are the property of the native tongue.
"I find that in the department of nouns, numerals and verbs, the amount of the foreign element is in both instances the same, viz, as nearly as possible forty-five per cent. In both instances, also, all the pronouns, prepositions, adverbs, and conjunctions, as all the inflexional forms and connecting particles are the property of the native tongue. I find that in the department of nouns, numerals and verbs, the amount of the foreign element is in both instances the same, viz, as nearly as possible forty-five per cent. In both instances, also, all the pronouns, prepositions, adverbs, and conjunctions, as all the inflexional forms and connecting particles are the property of the native tongue.
"I find that in the department of nouns, numerals and verbs, the amount of the foreign element is in both instances the same, viz, as nearly as possible forty-five per cent. In both instances, also, all the pronouns, prepositions, adverbs, and conjunctions, as all the inflexional forms and connecting particles are the property of the native tongue."I find that in the department of nouns, numerals and verbs, the amount of the foreign element is in both instances the same, viz, as nearly as possible forty-five per cent. In both instances, also, all the pronouns, prepositions, adverbs, and conjunctions, as all the inflexional forms and connecting particles are the property of the native tongue."
And then, in the next paragraph, he misses the evil design. He tries to compare English with Latin, and not Sanskrit. After all, Sanskrit, Greek and Latin are derived from the same root, for him:
"Trench’s expressions respecting the character of the contributions which our mother English has received from Anglo-Saxon and from Latin respectively are exactly applicable to the relation and proportion which the native Dravidian element bears to the Sanscrit contained in the Tamil."
He assumes that English has a great history as a language. English doesn't have a history at all since the number of works written in Old English is negligible, while the corpus of Sanskrit or Tamil literature can never be compared with anything Europe has produced, except in Latin and Greek, before 1500 CE. The total works produced in Tamil before 1500 CE surpasses everything Europe has produced outside Latin And Greek. A Britisher writer could be called a writer, only if he knew Latin. John Milton is an example. But Caldwell shares an absurdity with his readers:
"Though the proportion of Sanscrit which we find to be contained in the Tamil version of the Ten Commandments happens to correspond exactly to the proportion of Latin which is contained in the English version, it would be an error to conclude that the Tamil language is as deeply indebted to the Sanscrit as the English are to the Latin.
"The Tamil can readily dispense with the greater part or the whole of its Sanscrit, and by dispensing with it rises to a purer and more refined style; whereas the English cannot abandon its Latin without abandoning perspicuity. Such is the poverty of the Anglo-Saxon that it has no synonyms of its own for many of the words which it has borrowed from the Latin; so that if it were obliged to dispense with them, it would, in most cases, be under the necessity of using a very awkward periphrasis instead of a single word. Tamil, on the other hand, is peculiarly rich in synonyms; and generally, it is not through any real necessity, but from choice and the fashion of the age, that it makes use of Sanscrit. If the Ten Commandments were expressed in the speech of the lower classes of the Tamil people, or in the language of everyday life, the proportion of Sanscrit would be very greatly diminished; and if we wished to raise the style of the translation to a refined and classical pitch, Sanscrit would almost entirely disappear."
Then Caldwell scales the heights of absurdity and bigotry by declaring,
"Of the entire number of words which are contained in this formula, there is only one which could not be expressed with faultless propriety and poetic elegance in equivalents of pure Dravidian origin: that word is ‘graven image’ or ‘idol’! Both word and thing are foreign to primitive Tamil usages and habits of thought; and were introduced into the Tamil country by the Brahmans, with the Puranic system of religion and the worship of idols." This means, Caldwell just wants the lower caste people of Tamil Nadu, to remove and destroy the idols.
Further, while discussing the Behustin Tablets of Darius (Scythian Part), in three pages, Caldwell declares that the phonetics ṭ, ḍ and ṇ, though they exist in Sanskrit, they are imported into Sanskrit from Dravidian languages. The whole discussion stretching over three pages is just dishonest linguistic gymnastics. He concludes the discussion in complete nonsense:
"From the discovery of these analogies, we are enabled to conclude that the Dravidian race, though resident in India from a period long before the commencement of history, originated in the central tracts of Asia—the seed plot of nations; and that from thence, after parting company with the rest of the Ugro-Turanian horde, and leaving a colony in Beluchistan, they entered India by way of the Indus.
"How remarkable that the closest and most distinct affinities to the speech of the Dravidians of inter-tropical India should be those that are discovered in the languages of the Finns and Lapps of Northern Europe, and of the Ostiaks and other Ugrians of Siberia! and, consequently, that the Pre-Aryan inhabitants of the Dekhan should be proved by their language alone, in the silence of history, in the absence of all ordinary probabilities, to be allied to the tribes that appear to have overspread Europe before the arrival of the Goths and the Pelasgi, and even before the arrival of the Celts! What a confirmation of the statement that ‘God hath made of one blood all nations of men, to dwell upon the face of the whole earth."
Thus his Dravidian theory crumbles as a confused ramble of contradictions.
Another idiotic sample on numerals:
Not only do the numerals of every Scythian family differ so widely from those of every other as to present few points of connection, but even the numerals of any two dialects of the same family are found to differ very widely. Whilst the Sanscrit and the Gaelic agree in eight numerals out of ten, and differ in two only (one and five ); the Magyar and the Finnish, though as closely allied in point of grammatical structure as the Gaelic and the Welsh, have now only the first four numerals in common, and perfectly coincide in two numerals only, owe and four So great indeed is the diversity existing amongst the Scythian tongues, that, whilst the Indo-European idioms form but one family, the Scythian tongues are not so much a family as a group of families.
"At the very outset of my own inquiries I observed those Indo-European analogies myself; and, rejecting affinities which are unreal and which disappear on the investigation—(such as the connection of the Tamil numerals ‘ondru’ or ‘onnu’ one; ‘anju’ five; ‘ ettu’ eight; with ‘un-us’, ‘Pancha’ and ‘ ashta—a connection which looks very plausible, but is illusory."
On Hebrew, Caldwell has this nonsense to offer: "Though the majority of Hebrew roots have been proven to be allied to the Sanscrit, the Hebrew language does not cease to be regarded as Semitic rather than Indo-European." Suddenly he finds Semitic analogies in Tamil:
"It is a remarkable circumstance, that in the vocabulary of the Dravidian languages, especially in that of the Tamil, a few Semitic analogies may also be discovered. In some instances, the analogous roots are found in the Indo-European family, as well as in Hebrew, though the Hebrew form of the root is more closely analogous…In addition, however, to such general analogies as pervade several families of tongues, including the Dravidian, there are roots discoverable both in the Dravidian languages and in the Hebrew, to which I am not aware of the existence of any resemblance in any language of the Indo-European family… The Semitic analogies observable, in the Tamil are neither so numerous nor so important as the Indo-European, nor do they carry with them such convincing evidence; but taking them in connexion with that more numerous and important class of analogous roots which are found in the Indo-European languages, as well as in the Hebrew, but of which the Hebrew form is more closely allied to the Dravidian, these analogies, such as they are, constitute an additional element of interest in the problem of the origin and pre-historical connections of the Dravidian race."
He then links Dravidian languages with Australian tribal languages: "It seems proper here to notice the remarkable general resemblance which exists between the Dravidian pronouns and those of the aboriginal tribes of Southern and Western Australia."
Caldwell theorizes thus that while Tamil can borrow from Semiticism and Australia, it can never borrow anything from Sanskrit. While his linguistic theory is a mess, his political theory is equally deplorable. He theorizes that even the Dravidians are imported property, the Scythians. See this gem:
"The arrival of the Dravidians in India was undoubtedly anterior to the arrival of the Aryans, but there is some difficulty in determining whether the Dravidians were identical with the Scythian aborigines whom the Aryans found in possession of the northern provinces, and to whom the vernacular languages of Northern India are indebted for their Un-Sanscrit element, or whether they were a distinct and more ancient race. The question may be put thus: Were the Dravidians identical with the ‘Dasyus’ and ‘Mlechchas,’ by whom the progress of the Aryans was disputed, and who were finally subdued and incorporated with the Aryan race as their ‘ Sudras’ or serfs and dependents? or were they a race unknown to the Aryans of the first age, and which had already been expelled from Northern India, and driven southwards towards the extremity of the Peninsula before the Aryans arrived?
And then, in the next paragraph, he misses the evil design. He tries to compare English with Latin, and not Sanskrit. After all, Sanskrit, Greek and Latin are derived from the same root, for him:
"Trench’s expressions respecting the character of the contributions which our mother English has received from Anglo-Saxon and from Latin respectively are exactly applicable to the relation and proportion which the native Dravidian element bears to the Sanscrit contained in the Tamil."
He assumes that English has a great history as a language. English doesn't have a history at all since the number of works written in Old English is negligible, while the corpus of Sanskrit or Tamil literature can never be compared with anything Europe has produced, except in Latin and Greek, before 1500 CE. The total works produced in Tamil before 1500 CE surpasses everything Europe has produced outside Latin And Greek. A Britisher writer could be called a writer, only if he knew Latin. John Milton is an example. But Caldwell shares an absurdity with his readers:
"Though the proportion of Sanscrit which we find to be contained in the Tamil version of the Ten Commandments happens to correspond exactly to the proportion of Latin which is contained in the English version, it would be an error to conclude that the Tamil language is as deeply indebted to the Sanscrit as the English are to the Latin.
"The Tamil can readily dispense with the greater part or the whole of its Sanscrit, and by dispensing with it rises to a purer and more refined style; whereas the English cannot abandon its Latin without abandoning perspicuity. Such is the poverty of the Anglo-Saxon that it has no synonyms of its own for many of the words which it has borrowed from the Latin; so that if it were obliged to dispense with them, it would, in most cases, be under the necessity of using a very awkward periphrasis instead of a single word. Tamil, on the other hand, is peculiarly rich in synonyms; and generally, it is not through any real necessity, but from choice and the fashion of the age, that it makes use of Sanscrit. If the Ten Commandments were expressed in the speech of the lower classes of the Tamil people, or in the language of everyday life, the proportion of Sanscrit would be very greatly diminished; and if we wished to raise the style of the translation to a refined and classical pitch, Sanscrit would almost entirely disappear."
Then Caldwell scales the heights of absurdity and bigotry by declaring,
"Of the entire number of words which are contained in this formula, there is only one which could not be expressed with faultless propriety and poetic elegance in equivalents of pure Dravidian origin: that word is ‘graven image’ or ‘idol’! Both word and thing are foreign to primitive Tamil usages and habits of thought; and were introduced into the Tamil country by the Brahmans, with the Puranic system of religion and the worship of idols." This means, Caldwell just wants the lower caste people of Tamil Nadu, to remove and destroy the idols.
Further, while discussing the Behustin Tablets of Darius (Scythian Part), in three pages, Caldwell declares that the phonetics ṭ, ḍ and ṇ, though they exist in Sanskrit, they are imported into Sanskrit from Dravidian languages. The whole discussion stretching over three pages is just dishonest linguistic gymnastics. He concludes the discussion in complete nonsense:
"From the discovery of these analogies, we are enabled to conclude that the Dravidian race, though resident in India from a period long before the commencement of history, originated in the central tracts of Asia—the seed plot of nations; and that from thence, after parting company with the rest of the Ugro-Turanian horde, and leaving a colony in Beluchistan, they entered India by way of the Indus.
"How remarkable that the closest and most distinct affinities to the speech of the Dravidians of inter-tropical India should be those that are discovered in the languages of the Finns and Lapps of Northern Europe, and of the Ostiaks and other Ugrians of Siberia! and, consequently, that the Pre-Aryan inhabitants of the Dekhan should be proved by their language alone, in the silence of history, in the absence of all ordinary probabilities, to be allied to the tribes that appear to have overspread Europe before the arrival of the Goths and the Pelasgi, and even before the arrival of the Celts! What a confirmation of the statement that ‘God hath made of one blood all nations of men, to dwell upon the face of the whole earth."
Thus his Dravidian theory crumbles as a confused ramble of contradictions.
Another idiotic sample on numerals:
Not only do the numerals of every Scythian family differ so widely from those of every other as to present few points of connection, but even the numerals of any two dialects of the same family are found to differ very widely. Whilst the Sanscrit and the Gaelic agree in eight numerals out of ten, and differ in two only (one and five ); the Magyar and the Finnish, though as closely allied in point of grammatical structure as the Gaelic and the Welsh, have now only the first four numerals in common, and perfectly coincide in two numerals only, owe and four So great indeed is the diversity existing amongst the Scythian tongues, that, whilst the Indo-European idioms form but one family, the Scythian tongues are not so much a family as a group of families.
"At the very outset of my own inquiries I observed those Indo-European analogies myself; and, rejecting affinities which are unreal and which disappear on the investigation—(such as the connection of the Tamil numerals ‘ondru’ or ‘onnu’ one; ‘anju’ five; ‘ ettu’ eight; with ‘un-us’, ‘Pancha’ and ‘ ashta—a connection which looks very plausible, but is illusory."
On Hebrew, Caldwell has this nonsense to offer: "Though the majority of Hebrew roots have been proven to be allied to the Sanscrit, the Hebrew language does not cease to be regarded as Semitic rather than Indo-European." Suddenly he finds Semitic analogies in Tamil:
"It is a remarkable circumstance, that in the vocabulary of the Dravidian languages, especially in that of the Tamil, a few Semitic analogies may also be discovered. In some instances, the analogous roots are found in the Indo-European family, as well as in Hebrew, though the Hebrew form of the root is more closely analogous…In addition, however, to such general analogies as pervade several families of tongues, including the Dravidian, there are roots discoverable both in the Dravidian languages and in the Hebrew, to which I am not aware of the existence of any resemblance in any language of the Indo-European family… The Semitic analogies observable, in the Tamil are neither so numerous nor so important as the Indo-European, nor do they carry with them such convincing evidence; but taking them in connexion with that more numerous and important class of analogous roots which are found in the Indo-European languages, as well as in the Hebrew, but of which the Hebrew form is more closely allied to the Dravidian, these analogies, such as they are, constitute an additional element of interest in the problem of the origin and pre-historical connections of the Dravidian race."
He then links Dravidian languages with Australian tribal languages: "It seems proper here to notice the remarkable general resemblance which exists between the Dravidian pronouns and those of the aboriginal tribes of Southern and Western Australia."
Caldwell theorizes thus that while Tamil can borrow from Semiticism and Australia, it can never borrow anything from Sanskrit. While his linguistic theory is a mess, his political theory is equally deplorable. He theorizes that even the Dravidians are imported property, the Scythians. See this gem:
"The arrival of the Dravidians in India was undoubtedly anterior to the arrival of the Aryans, but there is some difficulty in determining whether the Dravidians were identical with the Scythian aborigines whom the Aryans found in possession of the northern provinces, and to whom the vernacular languages of Northern India are indebted for their Un-Sanscrit element, or whether they were a distinct and more ancient race. The question may be put thus: Were the Dravidians identical with the ‘Dasyus’ and ‘Mlechchas,’ by whom the progress of the Aryans was disputed, and who were finally subdued and incorporated with the Aryan race as their ‘ Sudras’ or serfs and dependents? or were they a race unknown to the Aryans of the first age, and which had already been expelled from Northern India, and driven southwards towards the extremity of the Peninsula before the Aryans arrived?
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| Caldwell lived here |
"This question of the relation of the Dravidians to the primitive Sudras, or Aryanised Mlechchas, of Northern India, is confessedly involved in obscurity and can be settled only by a more thorough investigation than any that has yet been made of the relation of the Dravidian languages to the Un-Sanscrit element contained in the northern vernaculars. We may, indeed, confidently regard the Dravidians as the earliest inhabitants of India, or at least as the earliest race that entered from the North-West, or crossed the Indus; but it is not so easy to determine whether they were the people whom the Aryans found in possession, or whether they had already been expelled from the northern provinces by the pre-historic irruption of another Scythian race. Some recent inquirers hold the identity of the Dravidians with the primitive Sudras, and much may be said in support of this hypothesis, I am not competent to pronounce a decided opinion on a point which lies so far beyond my own province, but the differences which appear to exist between the Dravidian languages and the Scythian under-stratum of the northern vernaculars induce me to incline to the supposition that the Dravidian idioms belong to an older period of the Scythian speech—the period of the predominance of the Ugro-Finnish languages in Central and Higher Asia, anterior to the westward migration of the Turks and Mongolians. If this supposition is correct, it seems to follow that the progenitors of the Scythian portion of the Sudras and mixed classes now inhabiting the northern and western provinces must have made their way into India subsequently to the Dravidians, and also that they must have thrust out the Dravidians from the greater part of Northern India, before they were in their turn subdued by a new race of invaders.
"By whomsoever, the Dravidians were expelled from Northern India, and through whatever causes soever they were induced to migrate southward, I feel persuaded that it was not by the Aryans that they were expelled. Neither the subjugation of the Cholas, Pandiyas, and other Dravidians by the Aryans, nor the expulsion from Northern India of the races who afterwards became celebrated in the South, as Pandiyas, Cholas, Keralas, Calingas, Andhras, etc., is recognised by any Sanscrit authority, or any Dravidian tradition. Looking at the question from a purely Dravidian point of view, I am convinced that the Dravidians never had any relations with the primitive Aryans but those of a peaceable and friendly character; and that if they were expelled from Northern India, and forced to take refuge in Gondwana and Dandakaranya, the great Dravidian forest, before the dawn of their civilisation, the tribes that subdued and thrust them southwards must have been Pre-Aryans.
"Those Pre-Aryan Scythians, by whom I have been supposing the Dravidians to have been expelled from the northern provinces, are not to be confounded with the Koles, Sontals, Bhills, Doms, and other aboriginal tribes of the North. Possibly these tribes had fled into the forests from the Dravidians before the Pre-Aryan invasion, just as the British had taken refuge in Wales before the Norman conquest. It is also possible that the tribes referred to had never crossed the Indus at all, or occupied Northern India, but had entered it, like the Bhut tribes, by the North-East, and had passed from the jungles and swamps of Lower Bengal to their present abodes,—taking care always to keep on the outside of the boundary line of civilisation. At all events, we cannot suppose that it was through an irruption of those forest tribes that the Dravidians were driven southwards; nor does the Un-Sanscrit element which is contained in the northern vernaculars appear to accord in any degree with the peculiar structure of the Kole languages.
"The tribes of Northern India whom the Aryans gradually incorporated into their community, as Sudras, whosoever they were, must have been an organized and formidable race. They were probably identical with the ‘Ethiopians from the East,’ who, according to Herodotus, were brigaded with other Indians in the army of Xerxes, and who differed from other Ethiopians in being ‘straight-haired.’The tribes of Northern India whom the Aryans gradually incorporated into their community, as Sudras, whosoever they were, must have been an organized and formidable race. They were probably identical with the ‘Ethiopians from the East,’ who, according to Herodotus, were brigaded with other Indians in the army of Xerxes, and who differed from other Ethiopians in being ‘straight-haired.’The tribes of Northern India whom the Aryans gradually incorporated into their community, as Sudras, whosoever they were, must have been an organized and formidable race. They were probably identical with the ‘Ethiopians from the East,’ who, according to Herodotus, were brigaded with other Indians in the army of Xerxes, and who differed from other Ethiopians in being ‘straight-haired.’
"I admit that there is a difficulty in supposing that the Dravidians, who have proved themselves greatly superior to the Aryanised Sudras of Northern India in mental power, independence, and patriotic feeling, should have been expelled from their original possessions by an irruption of the ancestors of those very Sudras. It is to be remembered, however, that the lapse of time may have effected a great change in the warlike, hungry, Scythian hordes that rushed down upon the first Dravidian settlements. It is also to be remembered that the dependent and almost servile position to which this secondary race of Scythians was early reduced by the Aryans, whilst the more distant Dravidians were enjoying freedom and independence, may have materially altered their original character.
"I admit that there is a difficulty in supposing that the Dravidians, who have proved themselves greatly superior to the Aryanised Sudras of Northern India in mental power, independence, and patriotic feeling, should have been expelled from their original possessions by an irruption of the ancestors of those very Sudras. It is to be remembered, however, that the lapse of time may have effected a great change in the warlike, hungry, Scythian hordes that rushed down upon the first Dravidian settlements. It is also to be remembered that the dependent and almost servile position to which this secondary race of Scythians was early reduced by the Aryans, whilst the more distant Dravidians were enjoying freedom and independence, may have materially altered their original character.
"It is not therefore so improbable as it might, at first sight,appear, that after the Dravidians had been driven across the Vindhyas into the Dekhan by a newer race of Scythians, this new race, conquered in its turn by the Aryans and reduced to a dependent position, soon sank beneath the level of the tribes which it had expelled; whilst the Dravidians, retaining their independence in the southern forests into which they were driven, and submitting eventually to the Aryans not as conquerors, but as colonists and instructors, gradually rose in the social scale, and formed communities and states in the Dekhan, rivalling those of the Aryans in the north.whilst the Dravidians, retaining their independence in the southern forests into which they were driven, and submitting eventually to the Aryans not as conquerors, but as colonists and instructors, gradually rose in the social scale, and formed communities and states in the Dekhan, rivalling those of the Aryans in the north.whilst the Dravidians, retaining their independence in the southern forests into which they were driven, and submitting eventually to the Aryans not as conquerors, but as colonists and instructors, gradually rose in the social scale, and formed communities and states in the Dekhan, rivalling those of the Aryans in the north.
"Mr Curzon (Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 16) recently attempted to meet the difficulty which I have stated by supposing that the Tamilians were never in possession of Arya-Varta, or Northern India, at all; but that they were connected with the Malay race, and came to Southern India by sea, from the opposite coast of the Bay of Bengal, or from Ceylon. This theory seems, however, perfectly gratuitous; for it has been proved that the languages of the Gonds and Kus are Dravidian, equally with the Tamil itself; that the Rajmahal is also substantially Dravidian; and that the Brahui partakes so largely of the same character (not to speak of the language of the Scythic tablets of Behistun), as to establish a connection between the Dravidians and the ancient races west of the Indus. It has also been shown that in the time of Ptolemy, when every part of India had long ago been settled and civilised, the Dravidians were in quiet possession, not only of the south-eastern coast but of the whole of the Peninsula, up nearly to the mouths of the Ganges."
"Mr Curzon (Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 16) recently attempted to meet the difficulty which I have stated by supposing that the Tamilians were never in possession of Arya-Varta, or Northern India, at all; but that they were connected with the Malay race, and came to Southern India by sea, from the opposite coast of the Bay of Bengal, or from Ceylon. This theory seems, however, perfectly gratuitous; for it has been proved that the languages of the Gonds and Kus are Dravidian, equally with the Tamil itself; that the Rajmahal is also substantially Dravidian; and that the Brahui partakes so largely of the same character (not to speak of the language of the Scythic tablets of Behistun), as to establish a connection between the Dravidians and the ancient races west of the Indus. It has also been shown that in the time of Ptolemy, when every part of India had long ago been settled and civilised, the Dravidians were in quiet possession, not only of the south-eastern coast but of the whole of the Peninsula, up nearly to the mouths of the Ganges."
The Scythians were civilized
Caldwell's mad rambling goes on like this throughout the book. His theory is unscientific, politically divisive and built only on absurdities, with a devilish design to convert the lower castes. While the Eurocentric mind brings to Indian history Scythians, describing them as uncivilized people, the fact is the reverse, the Scythians were culturally advanced.
The Scythians were a nomadic people, originally of Iranian stock, known from as early as the 9th century BCE who migrated westward from Central Asia to southern Russia and Ukraine in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. They founded a powerful empire centred on what is now Crimea, and it survived for several centuries before succumbing to the Sarmatians during the period from the 4th century BCE to the 2nd century CE.
Until the 20th century, most of what was known of the history of the Scythians came from the account of them by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who visited their territory. In modern times that record has been expanded chiefly by Russian and other anthropologists excavating kurgans in Tyva and Kazakhstan.
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| Cldwell statue at Marina beach |
The Scythians were admired for their prowess in war and, in particular, for their horsemanship. The migration of the Scythians from Asia eventually brought them into the territory of the Cimmerians, who had traditionally controlled the Caucasus and the plains north of the Black Sea. In a war that lasted 30 years, the Scythians destroyed the Cimmerians and set themselves up as rulers of an empire stretching from west Persia through Syria and Judaea to the borders of Egypt. The Medes, who ruled Persia, attacked them and drove them out of Anatolia, leaving them finally in control of lands which stretched from the Persian border north through the Kuban and into southern Russia.
The Scythians were remarkable for the complex culture they produced. They developed a class of wealthy aristocrats who left elaborate graves—such as the kurgans in the Valley of the Tsars (or Kings) near Arzhan, 40 miles (60 km) from Kyzyl, Tyva—filled with richly worked articles of gold, as well as beads of turquoise, carnelian, and amber, and many other valuable objects. This class of chieftains, the Royal Scyths, finally established themselves as rulers of the southern Russian and Crimean territories. It is there that the richest, oldest, and most-numerous relics of Scythian civilization have been found. Their power was sufficient to repel an invasion by the Persian king Darius I in about 513 BCE.
The Royal Scyths were headed by a sovereign whose authority was transmitted to his son. Eventually, about the time of Herodotus, the royal family intermarried with the Greeks. In 339 the ruler Ateas was killed at age 90 while fighting Philip II of Macedonia. The community was eventually destroyed in the 2nd century BCE, Palakus being the last sovereign whose name is preserved in history.
The Scythian army was made up of freemen who received no wage other than food and clothing but who could share in booty on the presentation of the head of a slain enemy. Many warriors wore Greek-style bronze helmets and chain-mail jerkins. Their principal weapon was a double-curved bow and trefoil-shaped arrows; their swords were of the Persian type. Every Scythian had at least one personal mount, but the wealthy owned large herds of horses, chiefly Mongolian ponies. Burial customs were elaborate and called for the sacrifice of members of the dead man’s household, including wives, servants, and several horses.
Despite these characteristics, their many exquisite grave goods, notably the animal-style gold artefacts, reveal that the Scythians were also culturally advanced. Further, some gold ornaments thought to have been created by Greeks for the Scythians were shown to have predated their contact with Greek civilization. Thus, the Dravidians cannot have any relation to the Scythians.
Hence, while the only place for the book of Caldwell book is the dustbin of history, in south India, a new identity called Dravidian Christianity is being constructed. It is an opportunistic combination of two myths: the “Dravidian race” and another that purports that early Christianity shaped the major Hindu classics! The Aryan/Dravidian constructs are mutually dependent and have been very successfully used to generate conflict, including violence, as in Sri Lanka in recent years.
The Dravidian race theory of Caldwell and others originated when colonial and evangelical interests used linguistics and ethnic studies to formulate imaginary histories and races. While European scholars like Moniere Williams and Horace Wilson were busy appropriating the Sanskrit classics and exporting Sanskrit manuscripts to England as the heritage of Europeans, British linguists Francis Ellis and Alexander Campbell worked in India to theorize that the south Indian languages belong to a different family than the north Indian ones. Another colonial scholar, Brian Houghton Hodgson, was promoting the term “Tamulian” as a racial construct, describing the so-called aborigines of India as primitive and uncivilized compared to the “foreign Aryans.”
To the colonial interests, Anglican Bishop Caldwell contributed what now flourishes as the “Dravidian” identity. He argued that the south Indian mind was structurally different from the Sanskrit mind. Linguistic speculations were turned into a race theory. He characterized the Dravidians as “ignorant and dense,” accusing the Brahmins — the cunning Aryan agents — of keeping them in shackles through the imposition of Sanskrit and its religion.
His successor, another prolific missionary, Bishop G.U. Pope, started to glorify the Tamil classics era, insisting that its underpinnings were Christianity, not Hinduism. The idea was successfully planted that Hinduism had corrupted the “originally pure” Tamil culture by adding Sanskrit and pagan ideas. It was fed by the theory that in the Indian Ocean there once existed a lost continent called Lemuria, the original homeland of the Dravidians. Accounts glorifying Lemuria were taught as historical facts under British rule because it exacerbated the regional faultlines.
A new religion called “Dravidian Christianity” has been invented through a sudden upsurge of writings designed to “discover” the existence of quasi-Christianity in Tamil history before the coming of the “Aryan” Brahmins. The project is to co-opt Tamil culture, language and literature and systematically cleanse them of Hinduism. Christian interpretations and substitutes are being injected into the most cherished symbols, artefacts and literary works of Tamil Hindu culture.
The preposterous claim is that Tamil classical literature originated in early Christianity. The Tamil classical tradition consists of two great components: an ethical treatise called Thirukural, authored by the great sage Thiruvalluvar, and a sophisticated Vedanta philosophical system called Saiva Siddhanta, which traces its origins to the Vedas and was nurtured by many Tamil savants over the centuries. Dravidian Christianity appropriates both these foundational works, attributing them to Christian influence.
The narrative used is that St. Thomas, the apostle, visited south India and taught Christianity to Thiruvalluvar, who was inspired by Christianity but did not capture St. Thomas’ message accurately. This is often portrayed in fake paintings showing the Thiruvalluvar sitting at the feet of St. Thomas, taking notes. The Indian church has announced archaeological “discoveries” to back the visit of St. Thomas to south India, but it has been confirmed that St Thomas has never been to India. Even the famous Jesuit archaeologist, Father Henry Heras, dismissed the so-called discovery of Thomas’ tomb in Chennai.
Thus, in breaking India, an influential nexus of Christian-funded institutions and scholars, often supported by western governments, are indulging in large-scale manipulations similar to those in colonial times. Sadly, a statue of the eccentric Bishop Robert Caldwell has been erected at Marina beach, by the Church. Now, for some, he is the icon who gave the Tamil people their “true history.”
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1. Frykenberg, Robert Eric (2004), "Caldwell, Robert (1814–1891)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press
2. ibid
3. "Faith and Family in South India: Robert Caldwell and his Missionary Dynasty", https://www.britishempire.co.uk/article/faithandfamily/elizacaldwell.htm
4. ibid
5. Robert Caldwell (1856). A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Or South-Indian Family of Languages. Asian Educational Services (Reprint of 1913 3rd edition revised by Reverend J.L. Wyatt and T Ramakrishna Pillai). pp. 88–105
6. Suvira Jaiswal (1974) [1958]. "Studies in the Social Structure of the Early Tamils". In R. S. Sharma (ed.). Indian Society: Historical Probings in memory of D. D. Kosambi. Indian Council of Historical Research / People's Publishing House. p. 126.
7. Daughrity, Dyron B. (2005). "Hinduisms, Christian Missions, and the Tinnevelly Shanars: A Study of Colonial Missions in 19th Century India". Alberta: University of Calgary. pp. 4, 7
8. ibid
9. Kumaradoss, Y. Vincent (2007), Robert Caldwell: A Scholar-Missionary in Colonial South India, Delhi: ISPCK10. ibid, pp. 23
11. Daughrity, Dyron B. (2005). "Hinduisms, Christian Missions, and the Tinnevelly Shanars: A Study of Colonial Missions in 19th Century India". Alberta: University of Calgary. pp. 4, 7
12. Robert Caldwell (1856). A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Or South-Indian Family of Languages. Asian Educational Services (Reprint of 1913 3rd edition revised by Reverend J.L. Wyatt and T Ramakrishna Pillai). All quotes from this edition.
13. Shulman, David. Tamil, A Biography (2016). Harvard University Press.14. Indrapala, K The Evolution of an ethnic identity: The Tamils of Sri Lanka, pp.155–156
15.Zvelebil, Kamil (1990). Dravidian Linguistics: An Introduction. Pondicherry: Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture.16. Indrapala, K The Evolution of an ethnic identity: The Tamils of Sri Lanka, pp.155–156
17. Zvelebil 1990, p. xx
18. Zvelebil 1990, p. xx
© Ramachandran
