Etymology of word "dravida"

Topic started by Dr. Madhusudan Mishra (@ 203-195-140-42.now-india.net.in) on Sun Dec 30 02:25:24 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Though the word draviDa or drAviDa has been current in India for a long time, it has acquired a derogatory sense in the recent ethnology, specially in relation to the racially Aryan concept of the west. Really, it has no ethnological connotation. As a geographical
region it relates to south India. But when the people are considered, even the Maharashtrans and Gujratis are included, specially the Brahmins living there. It is however true that Maharashtra and Gujarat cannot be reckoned as the Dravida country.

The word DraviDa or DrAviDa has no etymology. It may be taken to be an agglutinative formation: dra +vi + da. The central -vi- is also replaced by -mi-, and the name Tamil has actually come from dra-mi-da. Then it appears that dra- is the basic element. It was extended by -mida for one region and by -vida for the other. Later this
distinction was lost and the word Dravida became more common.

Though dra occurs in a passage in the AV (11,7,3), its meaning is not known. But da = heat + ra = fire making dra may refer to the `hot
sun', and the following -mida or -vida may stand for a `region'. Thus dra-mi (vi) -da seems to mean `the country of the hot sun'. Later it
began to refer to the people inhabiting that region.

Though of a similar derivation, Ki-rA-ta is free from any such controversy. The word kirAta occurs since the VS (30,16), and Manu has put them in the category of the drAviDas, but it is free from a strictly racial controversy. They have never remained concentrated to a region due to their wandering habit, which is confirmed from the
central syllable -ra-. In Prakrit, it is cilAa, but it is difficult to identify them with some modern group with identical name.

Source Page:

http://www.indusscript.net/appendix.html


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