To the readers,
the statement Tamils ruled India
“It is thus
clear that the Nagas and Dravidians are one and the same people. Even with much
proof, people may not be found ready to accept this thesis. The chief
difficulty in the way of accepting it lies in the designation of the people of South India by the name Dravidian. It is natural for them
to ask why the term Dravidian has come to be restricted to the people of South India if they are really Nagas. Critics are bound
to ask: If the Dravidians and Nagas are the same people, why the name Nagas not
used to designate people of South India also.
This is no doubt a puzzle. But it is a puzzle which is not beyond solution. It
can be solved if certain facts are borne in mind. The first thing to be borne
in mind is the situation regarding language. Today the language of Southern
India differs from that of the people of North India .”
“The second thing
to be borne into mind is that the word Dravida is not an original word. It is
the Sanskrit zed form of the word Tamil. The original word Tamil when imported
into Sanskrit became Damita and later on Damila became Dravida. The
word Dravida is the name of the language of the people and does not denote the
race of the people.
The third thing
to remember is that Tamil or Dravida was not merely the language of South India
but before the Aryans came it was the language of the whole of India and was spoken from Kashmir
to Kanyakumari. In fact it was the language of the Nagas throughout India
The next thing
to note is the contact between Aryan and the Nagas and the effect it produced
on Nagas and their language. Strange as it may appear the effect of this contact
on the Nagas of North India was quite different from the effect it produced on
the Nagas of South India. The Nagas in North India gave up Tamil which was their mother tongue
and adopted Sanskrit in its place. The Nagas in South India retained Tamil as
their mother tongue and did not adopt the Sanskrit language of the Aryans.
If this
difference is borne in mind it will help to explain why the name Dravida came
to be applied only for the people of South India .
The necessity for the application of the name Dravida to the Nagas of North
India had ceased because they had ceased to speak the Dravida Language. The
special application of the use of the word Dravida for the people of South India must not therefore obscure the fact that the
Nagas and Dravidas are one and the same people. They are only two different
names for the same people. Nagas was a racial or cultural name and Dravida was
their linguistic name” concluded Dr.B.R.Ambedkar.
Dr.B.R.Ambedkar
had tried to explain these questions “We often come across four names
Dravidians, Dasas, Nagas and Aryans. What do these names indicate? These
questions have never been considered. Are these names Aryans, Dravidians,
Dasas, and Nagas the names of different races or are they merely different
names for a people of same race?
“The general
assumption is that they are different names. It is an assumption on which
theories like that of Mr. Rice, which seek to explain the social structure of
the Hindu Society, particularly its class basis, are built. Before such a theory
is accepted it is necessary to examine its foundations. Starting with the
Aryans it is beyond dispute that they were not a single homogeneous people.
They were divided into two sections is beyond dispute. One of them may be
called Rig Vedic Aryans and the other Atharva Vedic Aryans. Their cultural
cleavage appears to be complete. The Rig Vedic Aryans believed in Yajna. The
Atharva Vedic Aryans believed the Magis. Their mythologies were different, The
Rig Vedic Aryans believed in Deluge and the creation of their race from Manu.
The Atharva Vedic Aryans did not believe in Deluge but believed in the creation
of their race from Brahma or Prajapathi. Their literary developments also lay
along different paths. The Rig Vedic Aryans produced Brahmanas, Sutras and
Aranyakas. The Atarvavedic Aryans produced the Upanishads. Their cultural
conflict was not so great that the Rig Vedic Aryans would not for long time
admit the sanctity of the Atharvaveda nor of the Upanishads and when they did
recognize it did they call it Vedanta. Vedanta which contrary to the current
meaning of the word namely essence of Vedanta originally meant something
outside the boundary of Vedas and therefore, not as sacred as the Vedas.
Whether these two sections of Aryans were two different races we do not know.
We do not know whether the word Aryan is indicative of race. Historians
therefore made a mistake in proceeding on the assumption that the Aryans were a
separate race.”
“A greater
mistake lies in differentiating the Dasas from the Nagas. The Dasas are same as
Nagas. Dasas is merely another name for Nagas. It is not difficult to
understand how the Nagas came to be called Dasas in Vedic literature. Dasa
is Sanskritized form of the Indo-Iranian word Dahaka. Dahaka was the name of
the King of the Nagas.
{The detailed inputs with regards to this are in the Paper presented by
Miss Karunakara Gupta to the Third Session of Indian History Congress -1939
titled Nagas and Naga Cult in Ancient Indian History.]
“Consequently
the Aryans called the Nagas after the name of their king Dahaka, which in
Sanskrit form became Dasa a generic name applied to all the Nagas”, says
Dr.B.R.Ambedkar in his book The Untouchables.
Having arrived
to the scene where Nagas are also known as Dasa, we are wondering whether the
names Bharathidasan, Kannadasan, Ramadasan, Vanidasan etc wherever the surname
was used as Dasa has more inner meaning than what could be read at the outset.
My grandfather is Ramadas, then I can also claim of being a Dasa I am also a
Naga. My father’s name is Nagarattinam and if I could use his initial in Tamizh
my name had to be spelt as Naga. Nandhivarman. My sister’s name is
Dr.Naga.Sengamala Thayar. Such similarities apart we have plenty of places
within India called
Nagapattinam, Nagore, and Nagpur and so on
proving the all India
Let us first
finish the detailed analysis of the Father of Indian Constitution
Dr.B.R.Ambedkar before dealing many such similarities.
“Who were the
Nagas? Undoubtedly they were Non_Aryans. A careful study of Vedic literature
reveals a spirit of conflict, of a dualism, and a race for superiority between
two distinct types of culture and thought. In the Rig-Veda, we are first
introduced to the Snake God in the form of Ahi Vitra, the enemy of the Aryan
God Indra. Naga, the name under which the snake-god was to become so famous in
later days, does not appear in early Vedic literature. Even when it does for
the first time in Sathapatha Brahmana [XI.2, 7, 12] it is not clear whether a
great snake or a great elephant is meant. But this does not conceal the nature
of Ati Vitra, since he is described always in Rig-Veda as the serpent who lay
around or hidden in waters, and is holding a full control over the waters of
heaven and earthlike.”
“It is also
evident from the hymns that refer to Ati Vitra, that he received no worship
from the Aryan tribes and was only regarded as an evil spirit of considerable
power who must be fought down.” So goes on Dr.Ambedkar.
It is becoming
evident that Snake cult as seen in the snake around the neck of Lord Shiva or
in the snake bed floating in the ocean of milk where Lord Vishnu is holidaying,
is not an Aryan element but a Non-Aryan element. In every temple near the
trees, people worship the Snake God. Because to segregate these worship forms
from the worship forms of Aryans is highly laborious and impossible job,
Periyar E,V.Ramasamy wanted to throw all gods and goddesses into the dustbin of
past.
Dr.B.R.Ambedkar’s
narration of Naga history follows: “The mention of Naga in Rig-Veda shows that
the Nagas were ancient people. It must also be remembered that the Nagas in no
way an aboriginal or uncivilized people. History shows very close intermarriage
between the Naga people and Royal families of India
Virakurcha, who according to another Pallava
inscription dated in the 9 th century A.D was the ruler of the dynasty, is also
mentioned in the same inscription as having married a Nagi and obtained from
her the insignia of royalty. The marriage of Gautamiputra, the son of the
Vakataka King Pravarsena with the daughter of Bharasiva King Bhava Naga, is a
historical fact. So is the marriage of Chandragupta II with Princess Kuvera
Naga of Naga kula. A Tamil poet asserts that Kokkilli, an early Chozha king had
married a Naga princess. Rajendra Chozha is also credited to have won by his
radiant beauty the hand of the noble daughter of Naga race. The Navasahasanka
Charita describes the marriage of the Paramara king Sindhuraja, who seems to
have reigned towards the early part of the 10 th century A.D, with Naga
princess Sasiprabha, with such exhaustive details in so matter of fact manner
as to make us almost feel certain that there must have been some historical
basis for this assertion. From the Harsha inscription of V.S.1030-973 A.D we
know that Guvaka I, who is the sixth king in the genealogy upwards from
Vigraharaja Chahamana and thus might be supposed to have been ruling towards
the middle of 9 th century was famous as hero in the assemblies of the Nagas
and other princes. Santikara of the Bhaumn dynasty of Orissa, one of whose
dates was most probably 921 A.D is mentioned in an inscription of his son as
having married Thirubuvana Mahadevi of the Naga family. Not only did Naga people occupy a
high cultural level but history shows that the ruled a good part of India
This and more
evidences produced by the scholarly presentation of Dr.B.R.Ambedkar will run into
pages and make this paper into a book
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