Page:Tamil studies.djvu/61

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TAMIL STUDIES

likewise considered the original home of the Dravidians. Dr. Caldwell must have held this view when he said that the Dravidians 'after parting company with the Aryans in the Central tracts of Asia entered India by the way of the Indus'. He has also proved some Dravidian influence in Sanskrit and vice versa in order to support his theory that the Dravidians and Aryans lived together before their dispersal from Central Asia. But scholars are now agreed that the original home of the Aryans was somewhere in the Scandinavian Peninsula and that no traces of any Aryan influence can be found in the Accadian language.

And this must afford us a clue to determine the approximate date of the Dravidian migration to Southern India. As pointed out by Dr. Caldwell, the Dravidian languages have had some influence from the Aryan languages. It should have taken place only after the Dravidians had left Central Asia and settled in the Punjab, before the arrival of the Aryans. The migration of the Tamils to Southern India should have taken place long after their sojourn in Upper India with the Sanskrit-speaking Aryans; and it will be shown in the sequel that the Dravidians had separated from the Aryans in the trans-Vindhyan Aryavarta sometime after the Mahabharata war about the eleventh century B. C.

The North-Western origin and migration of the Dravidians receive an additional support and confirmation from the Brahui language which has