The “Ariyar” in the Sangam literature and the Dravidian problem – a relook into the old issues (1)

The  “Ariyar” in the Sangam literature and the Dravidian problem  – a relook into the old issues (1)

A talk on Aryans and Dravidians: As a part of the lecture series of the Indological Research Institute (IRI), on 08-06-2024, Dr K. V. Ramakrishna Rao IRS (Retd.,) spoke about the  “Ariyar” in the Sangam literature and the Dravidian problem. The lecture has been summarized and added with the points discussed after the lecture. Though, leading historians have also accepted the myth of racial Aryans, now the genetic experts, heritadary researchers and inherited pundits have revived the same pseudo-scientific race concepts in different forms. In 1989, Romila Thapar[1] also pointed out the fallacy of carrying over of these myths by Indian scholars and Educational curricula:

“The theory of Aryan race arose out of European preoccupations and preconceptions and was applied to the early Indian past during the period of the colonial interpretation of Indian history. It does not have its roots in Indian view of the past. Nevertheless, it has been accepted and has become an axiom of Indian historical interpretation. Whereas scholars working on the European past have questioned this theory, we in India hold fast onto it and those who attempt alternate interpretations of the sources are few and far between”.

However, later, she has been equivocal[2]. Earlier, during the 19^th and 20^th centuries, in spite of the fact that race and language were two separate entities, the race experts, racist historians and racialist scientists propounded about many races. Now in 21^st century also similar hypotheses are floated based on the DNA studies.

A brief on modern theory – Aryans and Dravidians discussed on the genetic studies: According to the “out of Africa” hypothesis, the human species, having evolved to its modern form in East Africa some 150,000 years ago, thereafter embarked on populating the entire globe in a stepwise migration process beginning about 70,000–90,000 BP.  However, the dates change depending upon the number of samples, such species found at different places in Africa, all humans share a relatively recent common ancestry, but the story in the deeper past is more complicated than our species evolving in just a single location or in isolation[3], the tools used etc. As the researchers have not been agreeing with each other, the debate continues generally focused on two models—recent African origin (Stringer and Andrews 1988[4]) and multiregional evolution (Wolpoff, Wu, and Thorne 1984[5]). A morphological advantage of the modern phenotype— possibly reducing childbirth mortality—is proposed as the cause of the transition[6].  The miscegenation always poses a challenge and they could not fix it, where it happened first and ten continued for the millions of years to settle down with some definite anatomy, morphology or any other anthropological factor. The debate of miscegenation continues with diffusion and migration leading to admixture and interbreeding.

Neandarthal versus “out of Africa” (OOA)?: Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) are archaic hominids, supposed to be most similar to modern humans. These hominids, extinct members of the Homo genus, populated Europe and parts of western and central Asia before their disappearance 25,000 years ago (Tattersall, 1995). Fossil evidence suggests that Neanderthals probably coexisted with anatomically modern humans (i.e. Cro-Magnon) for 20,000 years (Finlayson et al., 2006).

• Neanderthals have been shown to share more genetic variants with present-day non-Africans than Africans. Recent admixture between Neanderthals and modern humans outside of Africa was proposed as the most parsimonious explanation for this observation[7].
• Recent studies have found evidence of introgression from Neanderthals into modern humans outside of sub-Saharan Africa. Given the geographic range of Neanderthals, the findings have been interpreted as evidence of gene exchange between Neanderthals and modern humans descended from the Out-of-Africa (OOA) migration. 
• Further analyses suggest that these differences are likely due to recent non-African admixture in these populations. After accounting for recent non-African admixture, the results do not support the alternative model of older (e.g., >100 kya) admixture between modern humans and Neanderthal-like hominids within Africa[8].
• The claim of Neandarthal is revealed in other scientific interpretations also. Detecting archaic introgression in modern humans without using an unadmixed reference panel reveals higher Neanderthal ancestry in African individuals than previously seen and suggests that back-to-Africa migrations contributed to this signal.[9]

Genetic interpretation of race: The conception of “race” here proposed is based upon the following fundamental postulates:

(1) that the original ancestral species population was genetically relatively heterogeneous;

(2) that by migration away from this original ancestral group, individual families became dispersed over the earth;

(3) that some of the groups thus dispersed became geographically isolated from one another and remained so isolated for more or less considerable periods of time;

(4) that upon all these isolated groups several of the following factors came into play as conditions leading to evolutionary change:

(a) the genetic drift or inherent variability of the genotypic, materials composing each individual member of the group;

(b) physical change in the action of a gene associated, in a partial manner, with a particular character, that is, gene mutation.

Going back to old theories: Ever since the advent of “Ariyar” in Indian history, the word “Aryan” has assumed significance and far-fetching linguistic and racial connotations. Then came, the advent of “Dravidians”. Caldwell’s linguistic invention was given a racial twist by the Westerners and Indian scholars, though the concept of race and language are two separate entities. Leaving these hypotheses and theories aside, an attempt is made in this paper to study the word “Ariyar” as found in the ancient Tamil literature, popularly known as Tamil Sangam literature. In the ancient Tamil literature, the word “Ariyar”, “Ariyan”, “Ariya” etc., are found in various places with their other forms and have been used both as nouns and adjectives.

Natrinai: It is the heading the list of Ettuttogai and its general theme is love. The word “Ariyar” appears in the 170^th poem, sung by an unknown poet. The companion of the heroin of the poem wants that the hero might be seduced by the beautiful lonely dancing girl. She compares the victory of the Virali (the dancer), who came to a festival clad in a leaf-garment, over her group to the fact that the famous town of Mullur, the “Ariya” soldiers swarmed, but ran away before the lance-battalion of Malayan (a Cheran), who unsheathed a shining sword and attacked with his large army. From this, we can see that the people who came from the north to attack Cheras were known as “Ariyar”.

Kuruntogai: Literally meaning ‘a collection of short poems’, it comes next and its theme is also love. The word “Ariyar” appears in the verse 7, line 3. Here, it is described how “Ariyars” dance on a tied rope according to the beatings of a drum. “The forest full of bamboos were rattled the white ripe seeds of shivering vakai tree (Sirisa tree) tossed by the wind like the drumming of the “Ariyar” dancing on the rope”. Therefore, here it is evident that “Ariyar” refers to a group of jugglers or tumblers, who performed acrobatics.

© K. V. Ramakrishna Rao

12-06-2024

---

[1] Romila Thapar, Which of us are Aryans?, Seminar – 364, December, 1989, Nrew Delhi, pp.14-18.

[2] Thapar, Romila. “Can genetics help us understand Indian social history?.” Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology 6.11 (2014): a008599.

[3] Aaron Ragsdale, a population geneticist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, says to Reuters’ Will Dunham. Reported on May 25, 2023.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dna-suggests-modern-humans-emerged-from-several-groups-in-africa-not-one-180982242/

[4] stringer, c. b., and p. andrews. 1988. Genetic and fossil evidence for the origin of modern humans. Science 239: 1263–68.

[5] wolpoff, m. h., x. wu, and a. g. thorne, 1984. “Modern Homo sapiens origins: A general theory of human evolution involving the fossil evidence of East Asia,” in The origins of modern humans. Edited by F. H. Smith and F. Spencer, pp. 411–83. New York: Alan Liss.

[6] Eswaran, Vinayak. “A diffusion wave out of Africa: The mechanism of the modern human revolution?.” Current Anthropology 43.5 (2002): 749-774.

[7] Yang, Melinda A., et al. “Ancient structure in Africa unlikely to explain Neanderthal and non-African genetic similarity.” Molecular biology and evolution 29.10 (2012): 2987-2995.

[8] Wang, Shuoguo, et al. “Apparent variation in Neanderthal admixture among African populations is consistent with gene flow from non-African populations.” Genome biology and evolution 5.11 (2013): 2075-2081.

[9] Chen, Lu, et al. “Identifying and interpreting apparent Neanderthal ancestry in African individuals.” Cell 180.4 (2020): 677-687.