Hart's Caste System - IV

Indian anthropological arena is infested by Philologists or Folklorists whose scientific temperament is suspect. I believe my particular scientific training as an engineer gives me particular insights which a pure humanist might not have. These imaginative and ideological Philologists like DD Kosambi, George L Hart have only managed to confuse rather than offering any concrete solutions.

Frogowellian arguments:
Menstrual blood:
As I have already pointed out Hart just does not want to go beyond Tamil region to compare the similar the cultural aspects. Of course, he goes beyond Tamil region but only to cover South India when it fits to his argument. Consider his footnote on menstrual blood taboo.

Though the segregation of women during their menstrual periods must have been
universal in South India during the time of the anthologies (as it is found in all South Indian cultures today and in medieval times),

Menstrual blood taboo is part and parcel of all West Asian derived pre-Christian religions like Judaism, Yazidi, Zoroastrianism and Caste system. I still believe ritualized menstrual blood taboo was first codified in West Asia though people living in present day India might have practicing it before entry of Indo-Turks (Y-Hg-R1a1 people also known as Indo-Europeans in popular literature) and Aryans (from Iranians/Caucasian lands). As Y-Hg-J2b appears to be older than any of those migrations.

Yazidis in Georgia have haplogroups K*,F*,P*,R2 and J2*. Though some have speculated Indo-Turk influence in Yazidi religion I rather believe it is built upon old West Asian beliefs. Lack of R1a1 in this highly endogamous community with caste like structure may show the oldest haplogroup distribution in that region before the advance of R1a1. But we need to check whether that J2* is entirely J2a or mix of J2a and J2b or J2b alone.

Now consider the exact word, pole, used by Hart to put forward his arguments.

This is what I found at Hobson-Jobson's dictionary;

HULLIA, s. Canarese Holeya; the same as Polea (pulayan) (q.v.), equivalent to Pariah (q.v.). ["Holeyas field-labourers and agrestic serfs of S. Canara; Pulayan being the Malayālam and Paraiyan the Tamil form of the same word. Brahmans derive it from hole, 'pollution'; others from hola, 'land' or 'soil,' as being thought to be autochthones" (Sturrock, Man. of S. Canara, i. 173). The last derivation is accepted in the Madras Gloss. For an illustration of these people, see Richter, Man. of Coorg, 112.]

I have already argued that we should restrict ourselves to the exact meaning of the word. In one of previous posts I mentioned about Mala in Andhra Pradesh equivalent to Holeya in Karnataka. In my opinion, the idea behind their designation must be the same. Hence I proposed it could have been derived from Sanskrit malIna meaning 'polluting'. Recently I was reading "At the botton of Indian society" (author: Stephen Fuchs). There Fuchs says;

An old Telugu dictionary derives Mala from maila, dirty. This sounds more appopripriate, for the Hindus consider the Malas as ritually impure

Now let us examine the relationship between pole meaning pollution and 'pole' meaning impurity due to menstrual blood and child birth. In Tulu, the word for former is pole and the word for the latter is pile. In Tulu too the word for the outcast is Poleya or Holeya showing the connection with the first word. But I am not in a strong ground here. According to Ravi Mundkur at Tulu Research, the word pole meaning pollution does not exist. I am following this database. Let us say pile is derived from pole. But that certainly shows the outcast Poleya has much to do with pollution than the menstrual blood (the uncontrolled thing that characterizes them). If there any strong correlation between menstrual blood and outcastyism is existed then it must have appeared in Tulu outcasts' identity. It should have been pileya and not poleya.

Polemics and Red herrings:
There is this idea going around that Brahmins' position was low in the early Tamil society. I wonder if Hart is responsible for that. He discusses about 'drum' the source of power and quotes;

...at that pindam [ball of sacrificial food] hard to get raised by the high one [uyarnton] to supplicate the god [in the drum, according to the old
commentary] wont to be hard in his might with mantras [mantiram] roaring
[i.e. shouted] out.

Then he discusses about the identity of 'high one' mentioned in that poem. He concludes that it must be a drummer whose status is higher than other drummers. In the run of the argument he discards Brahmins being high ones with an unqualified statement thus;

Brahmins are generally called Antanan and Parppan, not “high ones.”

.
So? Was a Paraiyan drummer ever called 'high one' until Hart zeroed in on him? Who qualified most for that at that time? Who do you associate most with 'pinda' and 'mantra'(hymn)? Anyway, I too talk about likely scenario therefore not really a strong point.

I still don't understand the necessity of this following paragraph;

If one uses purely economic criteria, then the high position and
influence of the Brahmins in later times must be mysterious, for it is not
clear that they had any tangible economic commodity or skill to offer.

Brahmins never really lived outside the village even when Hart believes they weren't at the top of the society. That argument reminded me something I read few years back. Those were words from an African though I don't remember the exact words and am writing them from my memory.

When the Whites came we hand the land and they had the Bible. They asked us to close our eyes and pray and said miracle would happen. When we opened our eyes miracle did happen. We had the Bible and they had the land.

Of course, Hart wants Brahmin to be non-high in the early Tamil society at any cost. He needs existence of caste in Tamil society based on certain other aspect (here controlled/uncontrolled power). Even when all his arguments are likelies/pluasiblies he makes a unequivocal statement in the end based on them.

As important as the Brahmins and the Brahmanical religion were, they were not the creators of the caste system in South India. They influenced the system profoundly, no doubt, but caste is found in most of its manifestations before the Brahmins became prominent.

Controlled and uncontrolled power:

Hart's arguments are centred around controlled and uncontrolled power. There were communities not really directly involved with possession and menstrual blood. These groups like leather workers and fishermen were confined to lower rungs all over India. But Hart tries to equate them with ghostistic groups like Pulaiyan, Panan etc...

The fish eating taboo could be found in Arab regions too. According to Stephen Fuchs Bedouin tribes considered fish a low food and higher classes abstained from it. They did not marry with the communities that ate fish or involved in fish catching. I believe Bedouins might have still kept that old West Asian taboo about fish that the Aryans from that region brought to India. I have come across myths of losing once high caste status involves fish eating or get caught with fish in South India. Fish and only fish no other meat.

Konkani and Bengali Brahmin communities do eat fish. Among them there are sections that do not. What we need is proper scrutiny of their haplogroup distribution. I have observed Bengali Brahmins do not have any J2a, a West Asian lineage. They are predominantly Indo-Turks(R1a1).
From Sengupta et al (2006) study.
R1a1-72%, R2=22% and H=6%

Unwanted qualifications:
In my opinion, an objective study must keep clear of all kinds positive and negative qualifications. I found couple of them unwarranted in this paper.

For this purpose, they could offer to the king their whole tradition of sacrifice and magic, already developed for almost a millenium and extremely impressive.

In other words, the function of the untouchables no longer included serving kings—a function that must have enhanced their low status—but was limited to such mundane and undignified tasks as cutting hair, washing clothes, and catching fish.

Epilogue:
Tulu society has never really moved away from its ghostistic traditions (probably true in the case of Kodava and north Malabar societies too). But even in that society I don't believe position of Brahmin and that of Poleya was different from the Tamil society in any degree in the past. The ghost possessor can be from any non-brahmin caste in the case of Kodava and Malayali society. But in Tulu society sometimes even Brahmin took up that role.

When you look at Tulu society then in my opinion there are two things that we can observe. There were occupational groups like leather workers that were deemed untouchable or low ones (fishermen). Then there are communities that were considered low like Holeya. A tribe can become an untouchable group as it moves closer to caste society(Koragas in Tulu region). However, Holeyas have been mainstream (if the dating of anthologies are correct) for nearly 2000 years now. That is probably for the reasons related to economics (as Holeyas were slave agricultural labourers in the past in South India).

But we should also note that people involved in ghost possession or shamanic traditions were not in high position in many societies (Siberian communities). Ghost possession or experience in my opinion is generally restricted to malnourished, illiterate classes of the society (and probably women). There can be no comparison of them with literate godistic priests.

Typical to societies around the world, South India too might have developed a society with masters and slaves. When Varnashrama was applied to the society I do not think slaves could be part of zUdras as the dominant classes themselves were grouped under them. It is more likely that Holeyas because of their controlled status(by landlords) than their uncontrolled status(by Hart) were relegated to untouchable status.


Article:
Early Evidence for Caste in South India

References:
1. At the Bottom of Indian Society, Stephen Fuchs
2. MtDNA and Y-chromosome Variation in Kurdish Groups, Nasidze et al. 2005

Origins of Malayalees-?.1

Development of Malayalam:
I shall broadly put the number of theories that I have come across on the said topic into three categories and I'll call them schools.

1. Scientific (the one proposed by H. Gundert)
2. Imaginative (the one proposed by Bishop Caldwell)
3. Ideological

Let us examine each theory briefly.
1. Scientific: H. Gundert proposed that old Malayalam and Tamil were two dialects of a Proto-language.

2. Imaginative: According to Bishop Caldwell Malayalam is a very ancient and much altered off-shoot of Tamil. I believe this theory is the one generally taught to students in Kerala.

3. Ideological: Namboodiri-s sanskritized Tamil and turned it into Malayalam.

Let us discuss each one of them in the reverse order.
Ideological:
This school is not bothered much about doing any research on its own. They borrow theories from either imaginative or scientific school and come out with their own interpretations. In this case, they have borrowed it from Imaginative school. However, even Imaginative school does not say a new language can be constructed by adding words from other languages. It may just say isolation of Proto-Tamils in Kerala region might have give risen to a new language. Languages change drastically with migration.

And I find it hard to believe that foreign word/s in Malayalam instead of being Malayaliized in its morphology and pronunciation can modify the language itself. But though that is a common sense, is not the obvious reason. Addition of Sanskrit words was mere a literary feature and until 19th century a big chunk of the population was hardly literate in any language. (And there are people who believe Malayalam started branching out of Tamil around 9th century CE, which is based on literary evidence. It is absolute foolishness to equate literary beginning to distinct spoken beginning).

I think there must be a study to understand the influence of literary Tamil on spoken Malayalam(even literary) and that makes more sense than talking about Sanskrit influence on spoken Malayalam (also, there must be a study on the influence of Malayalam on literary Tamil, especially on the works produced during Chera period).

Coming to Chera, it is obvious that Chera-s are Tamils considering the literature produced during that time in Kerala. However, probably motivated by this false notion of being lapsed Tamils has led to few historians(Sreedhar Menon/Prof. Elamkulam) in Kerala to argue for absolute Kerala origins of Chera kings (who in my opinion were Munda elites who became Dravidians and created a kingdom with the help of Brahmins). However, I find the so-called the Second Chera empire proposed by Prof. Elamkulam is interesting for some other reason.

I found the following passage in William Logan's "Malabar Manual". It is attribued to some Mr. Ellis.

The Malayalam has not been cultivated as an independent literary language, nor does the Tamil literature, notwithstanding the length of time the country was subject to Kings of Seram(Chera), appear to have been extensively known here, or at least has not survived that dynasty. This is the more extraordinary as some of the earliest and the best of Tamil works were composed in Seram. This remark, however, applies more to Keralam proper(present day north and central Kerala) than to Mushikam or Travancore (present day south Kerala); the residence of Seram viceroys (Logan speculates Peruamals) was in this province, and a knowledge of pure Tamil has always been more prevalent here than in northern districts.

For the remark that Tamil literature didn't survive after Chera-s, Logan makes a point that that was not true and in fact Tamil literature was produced between 10-13th century long after the fall of Chera-s(according to him in 9th century). However, Prof. Elamkulam has unearthed the Second Chera Empire(Kulashekaras of Mahodayapuram) that ruled until 12th century. That probably explains uninterrupted Tamil literature after the fall of the original Chera kingdom. This in my opinion would show there was a difference between the language of the ruling elites to that of common people.

Imaginative:
This school though for most part of the things follows scientific methodology cannot control itself from getting influenced by its own unparalleled imagination. George L Hart too is part this school.

One thing I appreciate about Bishop Caldwell's theory is that he considers migration path. I hold on to the view that any linguistic branch must make sense with the migration path taken by people.

According to him, Kerala was inhabited by Proto-Tamil people from the Tamil region. Well, if that is true then indeed there can be no doubt that Malayalis were Tamils once. Unfortunately, he came to the conclusion not based on any physical evidences but just like George L Hart's 'pole' based on couple of words whose etymology he derived with a great imagination. Logan calls this explanation fanciful though ingenious one.

The Malayalam word for east, kizhakku, means beneath, and because melku (west) means above, Dr. Caldwell argues that the Malayalis must have come from the Tamil country east of the ghats, since there they had the low level of the ocean on the east and the high level of the ghat mountains on the west.

Logan tries to match Caldwell's imagination with his own explanation for the terms.

But it is quite reasonable to suppose that the Dravidians, in finding names for east and west, selected words denoting that east was where the sun appeared from below, as it would seem to them, and west as the place where he similarly disappeared from above.

This is the problem I see in studies that run wild in their imagination on semantics. Though Logan makes it clear that he doesn't have any stance on Malayalam being the daughter of Tamil or otherwise, he is attracted towards that argument. Now the whole migration theory (From Tamil region to Kerala) revolves around these words. A situation similar to George L Hart's pole. Where the concept of pllution taboo arising from various factors or regions, just like the migration to Kerala region from regions other than Tamil Nadu, gets overlooked.

Scientific:
By scientific I do not mean correct. I just mean it is at least falsifiable unlike the last one(where you can come out with multiple arguments for kizhakku/melku/pole). I rather think Proto-Tulu-Kannada(or just proto-Kannada) people migrated south at some point of time and gave rise to two new languages(many in fact). One group became isolated in the region of present day Kerala and became Malayalis. I have grown skeptical about the language of Tuluva-s. I believe it may be a mix of SD-I and some other Dravidian linguistic family. I have argued that it must be SD-II but recently I have come across (and old study) that one of the linguists(Shankara Bhat?) observes it has characteristics of North-Dravidian. Therefore, the people who inhabited Kerala region may have been culturally Proto-Tuluva-s but not necessarily linguistically proto-Tuluva-s.

However, as required by linguistics, two languages are considered separate languages if they are either;
1. mutually unintelligible
2. intelligible only one way (Danes understand Swedish but not the other way round or is it vice versa?).

But political definition of an independent language may differ. In China, there are eight languages that are mutually unintelligible. Though by linguistics, those are eight independent languages for the people themselves those are eight dialects of a single language.

With these definition I believe Malayalam spoken by people in Kasaragod must be considered a separate language in view of the fact that central/south people would find it difficult to comprehend.

Conclusion:
It is tough to say Dravidians are the first people to colonize south India. It is also difficult to say whether the Dravidian language is the first one to be spoken in that region. It is possible that Dravidians as we know them today by their certain cultural markings came later and picked up the existing Dravidian language spoken by earlier migrants. By genetics, as far as I can see, the previous population was certainly not Munda in South India. It can be Vedda, however, any distinct language that the Vedda might have spoken doesn't exist anymore. Also, the genetic profile of Vedda is not available.

References:
1. Malabar Manual, William Logan
2. Linguistics, MIT Press Publication
3. A Survey of Kerala History, Sreedhara Menon
4. The Dravidian Languages, Bhadriraju Krishnamurti

Hart's caste system - III

George L Hart's rather innocuous looking work on "Caste in ancient Tamil society" has too many flaws as I have discussed previously. In this post, I am further exploring menstrual blood concept, an argument used very innovatively by Hart. Hart's whole discussion boils down to;

Shamanic native Dravidian tradition was considered uncontrolled and inauspicious by upper class native Dravidians. They also had the similar notion about menstrual blood. Therefore, Dravidian priestly classes indulged in Shamanic traditions were called 'pulayan' (in Tamil), where the root of the word pol* means 'menstrual blood'. These Pulayans became later day untouchables. In other words, a community that became untouchable was the result of unique Dravidian world view. A world view unrelated to north Indian people like Brahmins.

The drawbacks:
1. The word pole meaning menstrual blood is attested in Kannada, Tulu and Kodava Takk but not in the quintessential Dravidian Tamil language. That does not stop George L Hart from giving credit to Tamils for having such stunning world view without any help from Indo-Europeans and does not even discuss the probability of development such high culture in Karnataka region. An unknown Atlantis in Karnataka before Tamil civilization.

2. The biggest Dravidian speaking region Andhra Pradesh does have an equivalent outcasts though their caste identity is not derived from pole. Of course, the caste system in Andhra region was enforced during Satavahana period whose suzerainty over that region predates Tamil literary period.

3. Vediks did have all the taboos associated with menstrual blood exemplified in Manu smriti. If I remember correctly, Vediks did consider worshipping ghost is inauspicious. Krishna says if somebody worships ghost he will become a ghost in the next life.

Menstruation Belt:
My research takes me to the conclusion that menstrual blood meaning of pole is secondary to the word and most likely conceived by Indo-Aryans who merged with Dravidian speaking population in the South. However, as we have seen, purity and pollution concepts are not really part of European Indo-European culture. There is a strong connection between division of society in Norse society and Indo-Aryan society. Though it should be noted that correspondence exists for Ksatriya(chieftains), Vaisya(common people...herders) and Sudra(slaves/serfs) but not for priests. The Norse caste system is three fold whereas Vedic caste system is four fold with priests at the top.

As I have said, European society did not have extreme taboos associated with menstrual blood. So, obviously, if Indo-Europeans of India had it then they might have absorbed it somewhere beyond India as they migrated from Kurgan lands. I did web research on menstrual blood taboo. I considered a motif of segregating women during their menses.

I found this precise motif among;
1. Arabs (Semitic)
2. Jews (Semitic)
3. Zoroastrians (IE)
4. Kalash (IE)
5. Lambani (IE)
6. Roma (IE)

Indeed, there were speculations of Zoroastrian influence on Semitic traditions. However, in this case it is the other way round.If PIE people had this tradition then it should have observed in Norse society. Since it was not the case we can conclude that IE people absorbed concepts of pollution associated with menstrual blood from West Asian people.

Lambani and Roma may suggest this tradition probably was already part of India and likely that Dravidians might have had it. But Lambanis have Y-Hg-R1b lineage in high frequency. This is not observed among Indians and most probably derived from West Asian lineages. Roma practice of menstrual taboo is a mystery. Probably, as this group IE-ised it absorbed Indo-Aryan tradition of menstrual taboo. However, Roma practice of separate dwelling during menses shows a rather West Asian tradition. I guess Hindu practice was not that severe. Probably, they might have picked up that practice during their stay in West Asia.

It is again tough to find original Dravidian view about menstrual blood. There are many Dravidian tribes where I believe Shamanic tradition is still alive and those people have not been made outcasts. I still do not know much about these tribes' view on menstrual blood. I found this article by Paul Zacharia where he states;

Menstruation is, after all, not such a dread sin for everyone in Kerala. There is even a temple where the devi’s ‘menstrual blood’ is revered.

Okay, that is equally pathetic as fearing menstrual blood. Fear and reverence are two sides of the same coin when it comes to spiritual world. So, I believe it may not be diagonally opposite world view.

Development of Menstrual blood taboo:
The moot point is why West Asian society developed menstrual taboo concepts while Europeans did not. A European member at Quetzalcoatl anthropology forum feels concept of purity-pollution is not for the ultimate machos like Europeans. This is a view that finds an echo in Ahmad ibn Fadlan's writings.

But I believe the society that developed a philosophy before inventing a clothing akin to present day underwear might have come up with menstrual blood taboo and the society that developed philosophy after complete covering did not bother about menstrual blood. As we know West Asian society was the first one to develop a civilization.

Untouchability:
The greatest contribution of George L Hart to the culture of Tamil "race" with irrelevent Brahmins of Indo-European "race" is that they had a distinct world view that discriminated women and created class of people who would become untouchables, as far as I can see. I was trying to find Tamil responses to that. One Tamil propagandist states that Tamils should be proud of their contribution to Indian society both good and bad. Of course, bad is clearly as explained by George L Hart. He too probably believes a distinct Tamil race. Curiously, In one of the forums, he mentions a word sounding similar to pole being used in Nepal associated with blood rituals. And also, mentions about untouchability in Japan. Well, a bird view observation finds common thread in Buddhism. Again, a religion of Indo-Aryan speaking people.

Another Tamil propagandist claims Tamils did have a unique world view as explained by George L Hart but no it did not lead to all those gory things. Does he think uniqueness of Tamils as explained by George L Hart is 'good'? If he accepts it from a neutral point of view then why he is opposing the conclusions drawn with that world view. That makes me to conclude he thinks that world view is 'good'. What a pity!

Origins of Indians: Version 6.2

Rise of Brahma:
We have already seen that rise of Vishnu is achieved by a Semitic community that became part of South Asia. The first among trinity, Brahma, is another mystery.

The Rig Vedic Brahman is mostly 'pious words' or the 'person who says pious words'(ie. Braahmana). However, this Brahma is a creator. From Wikipedia article on Brahman;

Brahman or brahma, and similar words, have various meanings, mostly related to Hinduism. In the correct Indian pronunciation, the first a is long or short as indicated, and the h is pronounced as a voiced consonant.

These words come from a Sanskrit root bŗh = " to swell, grow, enlarge", cognate with many English words such as "bulge". They all derive from the Proto-Indo-European root *bhel-, meaning "to swell" or "to grow" [1]. The Latin verb flāre = "to blow" also comes from the same root. Some, including Georges Dumézil, have said that the Latin word flāmen (= "priest") may also be cognate to brahman. A possible connection with the Semitic root br' ברא "create, opening" has also been suggested, but this is refuted by most linguists.

The Semitic root has been dismissed by the linguists. However, I believe both IE and Semitic roots are correct. Just like Gisnu in Vishnu's case, they show merging of diverse origins because of similar sounds. Since those people were not linguists we can not blame them for this. In my opinion, Brahman is an IE word with root 'brh' and Brahma is a Semitic word with root 'br'. But the Semitic root might go back to Sumerian root as many of the Semitic religious terms, traditions were a borrow from Sumerian culture. However, I have not found any proof to support that 'br' has any meaning in Sumerian. But here is my take on it.

Abraham etymology:
Many have their own etymologies for Abraham. Here I am presenting one of my own. I think the original form of Abraham was Ebraham. This we can break this word into Sumerian etymology;
E + Braham -> E + Br* -> house + creator -> A man from the house of creator...son of god (Ebraham)?

Probably, Semitic community had this concept of creator(Br*) when they moved to South Asia.

Purity and Pollution:
The enforcement of caste system in South, East and Central India can not be explained by "racism" as the time of its enforcement in these areas were almost a millennium or two after the putative migration of Aryans. Of course, in my scheme of things the caste system was the result of complex mix of different cultures.

The caste system was sustained in North-West of India and was spread in the other regions mainly because of purity and pollution concept. This is a powerful idea and difficult to get over.
Some of the things that were considered polluting;
1. food: People involved in certain kind of food productions became outcasts.
2. professions: Many professions were deemed polluting.

Then of course, we have menstrual blood concept. Anyway, we can only say, like most of the things menstrual blood was considered dirty and we see enough evidence that in Manusmriti itself. But is it the unique feature of Indian society, the feeling of dirty getting associated with the people?

The polluting menstrual blood concept is not unique to India. It has been observed among Papua New Guineans, Eastern Indonesians(probably Indian influence), and even in native American society. But what comes to close to Indian attitude towards menstrual blood is again Semitic tradition. The Niddah laws of Jewish tradition in fact deliberate on impurity caused by the touch of menstruating woman on persons, food etc... similar to Manu's laws.

Probably, Indians might have developed dirty feeling about menstrual blood on their own but I believe the laws on them were in fact an import from Semitic regions. But is that the only pollution concept we received from the Semites. As it turned out Semites had a very strong concept of purity and pollution on their own. I came across this study on the net.

Interestingly, their word for impurity is 'tameh'. In Hinduism, 'tamas' is considered darkness or very low(food or character).

Some of the points from the study;

- objects touched by unclean humans become unclean
- clean and unclean animals
- taking bath to become clean again(sometimes even offerings)

Probably, many of these had hygienic beginnings but people tend to forget the roots and develop fantastic theories. Anyway, I think I can construct a new theory to go along with the Aryan migration theory(AMT) that will explain development of India society with its peculiar features.

The Semitic Introgression Theory(SIT):
By linguistic theory it is difficult to reject AMT. However, Indian society is incomplete without taking into effect Semitic/Middle Eastern societal structures and culture. The early Rig Vedic society constituted chieftains and common men. However, later society shows four folded caste system with priests occupying the highest position. In my opinion, this was the result of Semitic influence.

-Evidence from Population genetics:
The Haplogroups J2a and G2 show very uneven distribution in South India(Sengupta et al. 2006). None of the other haplogroups show any caste specific clustering or in fact show somewhat deep ancestry of majority caste population. However, J2a and to lesser extent G2 shows a marked difference here. Both these haplogroups show Indus valley, Middle East and Mediterranean distribution. But their distribution into India is not very deep like H,R1a1,R2. However, interestingly, the communities with predominant J2b and L1 have very low J2a among them(and G2 almost non-existent). And Brahmins with high J2a and G2 (though total frequency of both do not exceed beyond 20-25% ) have very few J2b among them. This leads us to a very interesting observation about the original urheimat of Dravidians around 3500 BP. In my opinion, it can not go beyond Indus valley(probably, southern region, Sindh). If they had come somewhere beyond the subcontinent to South India that would not explain uneven distribution of the haplogroups and also lack of region specific Haplogroups.

In case of Semitic community, that influenced South Asia, even that can not be far away from Indus valley. Probably, around Eastern Iran where Haplogroup E3b clan yet to reach around that time. Of course, my interest would be on Marhashi, variously known as Barahshe or even Purushum. Was Purusha Sukta written by people form Purushum?

-What about Semitic society?
Okay. If Semitic society had so many features that were responsible for purity and pollution of Indian caste system, why then Semitic society did not become a caste society.

The only Semitic society that kept the oldest traditions is that of Jews. However, I believe had Jews continued to live in their homeland even they would have developed a caste society. Because of their tough conditions and their life in societies that did not have such strong notions about polluting things, their society escaped from caste system. In my opinion, they did show some characteristics of caste system. According to the article that I have quoted above;

However, even before AD 66, the Dead Sea Sectarians can view the gentiles as by nature ritually impure, and perhaps the biggest problem is the exclusion of gentiles from the inner part of the Temple complex, as attested by Josephus, who has been confirmed by the discovery of parts of the inscriptions which threatened death to gentiles who crossed the barrier

Well, disallowing temple entry is a very common feature of caste society. However, the precedence to this feature we find only in a Semitic society with typical impurity concepts. I believe it was Semitic introgression into Indian minds that gave this idea of debarring "impure" people (just like non-Jew Gentiles) from entering the temples.

Hart's caste system - II

In my previous post, I have discussed how Hart's study of Tamil society does not take into consideration many aspects. Here I am going to dissect some of arguments in the study.

Menstrual blood or pole:
According to Hart, auspicious and in-auspicious traditions are defining paradigm of Tamil society. Therefore, the name of the untouchable caste in South India, Holeya(Kn) or Pulayan(Tam), is derived from a word pole which meant menstrual blood or pollution due to menstrual blood. As South Indians held menstrual blood inauspicious because it was uncontrolled just like spirits of Holeyas.

But I would like to know if the meaning menstrual blood is primary or later day derivative. If you check various branches of Dravidian languages this word is attested as menstrual blood only in SD-I, rest all have (ND(Brahui), SD-II(Telugu)) the present meaning of unclean or dirty. Curiously, pole meaning menstrual blood is not attested even in Tamil(part of SD-I).

According to Hart, most of the Southern languages have some equivalent for Tamil pulayan to designate outcaste. Well, "most" is a very ambiguous word. Anyway, Telugu does not have any equivalent for this word for a man of lower caste. And Telugus make up one third of Dravidian speakers in India (more than Tamils).

The Telugu equivalent caste for Kannada Holeya or Tamil Pulayan is called "Mala". I am not sure of the etymology of Mala. So let us take an indirect way and try to understand the terms for the people declared unclean or untouchable. We can consider two meanings from Hart's pole and general meaning of pole;
1. The people with uncontrolled traditions therefore word meaning polluting menstrual blood which is also uncontrolled.
2. The people are unclean therefore the word for unclean

If we consider the first meaing then we have to find menstrual blood meaning for mala. I have not found that. But the second meaning is very close if we take the word mala is in fact a borrow from Indo-Aryan language. The IE root mel* means unclean, dirty(malina in Sanskrit). The mala could be an exact equivalent word for Dravidian pole in Indo-Aryan. If mala is indeed an Indo-Aryan word then we can be sure that a big chunk of Indo-Aryanized population from East(predominantly Y-Haplogroup H, and Y-Haplogroup R2) have already become part of Dravidian peoples since the dawn of their civilization. Therefore, ritualistic impurity and consequently untouchable status of people in South Indian society need not be autochthonous to South Indian society.

Now let us consider the unclean menstrual blood itself. I have already said that could never be part of pure Dravidian society as it never developed concepts like linga and yoni. So the best way is to understand old North Indian and East Indian attitudes towards menstrual blood.

Excerpts from Manusmriti:

A Kandala, a village pig, a cock, a dog, a menstruating woman, and a eunuch must not look at the Brahmanas while they eat.

For the wisdom, the energy, the strength, the sight, and the vitality of a man who approaches a woman covered with menstrual excretions, utterly perish.

Let him not sleep alone in a deserted dwelling; let him not wake (a superior) who is sleeping; let him not converse with a menstruating woman; nor let him go to a sacrifice, if he is not chosen (to be officiating priest).

Let him never eat (food given) by intoxicated, angry, or sick (men), nor that in which hair or insects are found, nor what has been touched intentionally with the foot,

Nor that at which the slayer of a learned Brahmana has looked, nor that which has been touched by a menstruating woman, nor that which has been pecked at by birds or touched by a dog,

(A woman) is purified on a miscarriage in as many (days and) nights as months (elapsed after conception), and a menstruating female becomes pure by bathing after the menstrual secretion has ceased (to flow).

When he has touched a Kandala, a menstruating woman, an outcast, a woman in childbed, a corpse, or one who has touched a (corpse), he becomes pure by bathing.

By earth and water is purified what ought to be made pure, a river by its current, a woman whose thoughts have been impure by the menstrual secretion, a Brahmana by abandoning the world (samnyasa).

I shall stop it here. From the look of it every attribute that make menstrual blood inauspicious could be found in Manu's laws. Therefore, unclean menstrual blood is secondary meaning to pole. Probably, after the migrations of Indo-Aryan peoples to South India who became Dravidians(and who could be Austro-Asiatic, Burushaski , Caucasian speakers before becoming Indo-Aryan speakers).

Warriors and auspicious power:
This is quite interesting to me. The othreday I was watching a documentary on Qin Shi Huang, First Emperor, who unified China in 221 BCE. The emperor (or his Shamans) had to take care of spirits of dead enemy soldiers from being harmful after their successful attacks. A typical Soulistic society must show this characteristic. The spirits that are harmful are that of your enemies. But in South Indian society more than the spirits of dead enemies(if at all they do), it was the spirits of dead native soldiers that were dangerous. According to Hart, warriors were themselves source of power and they were not harmed by spirits of enemy soldiers. But spirits of these warriors by themselves dangerous to the natives and had to be propitiated. No wonder with this kind of logic the soulistic society made room to godistic society whereas China even with those inauspicious spirits remained unified and was never really a godistic or auspicious society.

Funnily, Holeyas in Tulu society were soldiers at least till 15th century(Afterwards none of the local Tulu communities participated in warfare. The region came under direct control of Kannada rulers during this period who did not trust the natives and settled Marathis there for soldiering). According to some records, they(Holeyas) were even generals during 3rd-4th century. Later the army chiefs were mostly Bunts and sometimes Billavas. However, every community be it Billava, Bunt or Holeya had to send a person from each household whenever there was a war. I wonder how a Holeya in Tulu region who at once was a source of power(as a warrior) and also a receptor of a power(because he was Hart's Pole derived Holeya) fit into this whole auspicious-inauspicious scheme.

Hart's caste system - I

George L. Hart's study "Early Evidence for caste in South India" basically tells us that ground work for various levels of caste society had already been done in South Indian society before Brahmins sanctified it. According to him, these divisions were basically the result of auspicious and inauspicious religious strains present in the society. The people mostly into inauspicious rituals became later day untouchables. However, kings patronized them but they remained poor. But kings were not part of that segment but their dependence on these people was some kind of philosophical inevitability. Later Brahmins provided a very logical alternative to kings and other segments of the society which was readily accepted. But I found the study left out many aspects.

Jain influence:
How strong was the Jain influence in the literature? I suppose some of the Tamil classics were written by Jains. How much Jain worldview might have influenced Dravidian upper classes?

Another tradition caught my eye was tonsuring head of widows. This tradition was supposedly followed by Dravidian upper classes and now observed among few Brahmin communities. This hairy issue continues to perplex me. I have read that having hair on the body was considered unclean by Malayalees. In fact, "hairy person" was some kind of abuse or criticism in old days. That anthropologist(G S Ghurye?) speculated that since dark skinned people do not have much bodily hair any growth might have been considered unwanted. Imitating the other Malayalees even Brahmins started shaving off their body hair. Well, I am not sure about metrosexual nature of Dravidians but whenever I hear plucking every hair from the body that reminds me of Jains. After all, hair plucking must be a pan-Indian phenomenon (probably, in South-West gradient).

Where are the shamans?
Along with Jains, the article hardly talks about shamanism. As I see it the conflict was between Shamanic tradition and Godistic tradition in old Tamil society. However, there are no mentions of shamans(Paatri in Tulu society, B(V)elichappad or Komaram in Malayali society. Though, most of the article considered them as oracle, I would rather call them as shamans as they hardly make use of any oracle bones but only get possessed by spirits) in that study. Too much emphasis on spirit possession by communities that later became untouchable. Whereas, the shamans could be from any caste in Tulu/Malayali societies. Probably, Tamil society had hardly remained Dravidian in true cultural sense by first century CE. I wonder since when uncle-niece marriages became part of Tamil society. This tradition shows a major shift from matrilineal society to patrilineal society. Uncle-niece marriages would have been impossible in matrilineal societies as both belong to the same family. I would expect the taboo against this would been present for certain period in societies that made a recent transition from matrilineality to patrilineality. I believe there was a strong non-Dravidian(cultural) influence on Tamils(along with Kannadigas and Telugus) since pre-historic times of South India. For this reason, I find the word "pole" (the erstwhile untouchables were called Holeya in Kannada/Tulu and Pulayar in Tamil) intriguing. It seems pole in old Kannada meant menstrual blood.

The unclean menstrual blood concept:
As I have already discussed the concept of linga-yoni could have been developed in Shamanic societies, while Godistic society was basically incompatible with that. But one can observe that linga-yoni concept was not part of original Shamanic society of Tulu tribes and mostly part of Eastern regions.

I consider, the unclean menstrual blood and glorification of semen could be envisaged only in linga-yoni societies. I do not find any foundations in purely Shamanic societies for such a tradition. Which society developed this concept?

If we observe some of the communities with origins in Eastern region (Bengal/Orissa/Andhra), we see a curious belief of impurity of birth. In some communities the pregnant woman has to move away from the family and live in a solitary confinement until she gives birth and must come back on her own. I believe this tradition is the peak of any yoni related concepts. Roma, a gypsy community in Europe/Central Asia had this tradition and as I have already pointed out they were basically from Eastern Indian regions.

So, if birth was impure for old Eastern Indian communities(predominantly Y-haplogroups H and R2 clans), what about menstrual blood? I think it is not possible to generalize South Indian cultural ethos by looking at old Tamil society. The linguists have already observed this in the case of Tamil and Proto-Dravidian coalesce.

...and the Pallavas:
Hart elaborately explains conflicts between auspicious and inauspicious traditions and how the dominance of inauspicious traditions left the country divided into smaller principalities with constant warfare. According to him, solution offered by the Brahmins would have helped to unite the country(with an example of Guptas in North India...what about Rajputs... anyway, there could be other explanations). But the problem is the kings who first saw this advantage were Pallavas.

I would have accepted all those logical reasons given by Hart, if Pallavas made a transition from inauspicious traditions to auspicious traditions. But, as I see it, that is hardly the case. Pallavas were part of auspicious traditions.