The History of The Dravidian Civilization

The Dravidians were the original, brown skinned, straight haired (No ! they were not curly haired African decendents), settlers of India (who would swear they were here, in "God's own country", even before Adam and Eve saw the light of day). They were the ones who habited the entire surface area of this holy land, south of the Himalayas and Hindu Kush mountains, since the time of the great Harrappan and Mohanjo Daro Civilizations (these definitely well prior to 1300BCE). Nothing is known of the religion they practiced earlier, though it is an accepted fact that quite a few Dravidian Gods worshiped then, have found a place in the Aryan religion being practiced now. The Dravidians had migrated and had cumulated in the southern portion of the sub-continent subsequently. The reason of their migration is not known, but this could have been due to natural calamities amongst others, or possibly due to immigrant pressure likely from the Aryan immigration into the North. With the advent of the Aryan settlers, who also ventured south partially, in restrictive numbers, subsequent to their settling down in the North, the Aryan customs, their Vedic religion & beliefs and practices also gradually spread out and seeped through the populace to the South.

Many stories prevail on where the Dravidians came from originally. No definitive ideas have concluded on this, till date. However there is a line of thought that the Dravidian Tamils migrated from the Lands of Lemuria (called as Kumari Kandam), which was situated south of the Kanya Kumari region. This land was said to be virtually contiguous with the existing southern territory and, it is said to have been submerged due to a Tsunami during the 6th to 4th century BCE (or possibly even earlier). In the absence of Indian archaeological data on this, we lean on SriLankan ancient literature: Maha Vamsam, Deepa Vamsam, and Erasa Valee, which indicate several Tsunami during the period of 504 and 305 BCE.

The Vedic religion did not have any worthwhile effect, on the Dravidian civilization. There were mainly two reasons for this:

• There was not enough time for the cross culture to take root - from the period the period the Aryas ventured into India in the North with the Vedas (from about 1300BCE), till the practice of the Vedas faded out (around the 4th century BCE).
• The Aryas' penetration down South, was more pronounced, only after the Vedic religion was on a downward trend. The Vedic religious practices were high handed, personal, restrictive and rather costly to keep in touch with. However the Brahminical religion, subsequently modified, to the Agamic stance, made deep inroads and came to be adopted gradually in their midst - this possibly came about only from the 2nd / 3rd century CE onwards. There was stiff opposition from the Jain and Buddhist stalwarts, amongst the populace, who did their utmost to thwart this move - but with little success.

The Language and population of the various Dravidian groups

• Southern Dravidian Group: Includes those who spoke Thulu (5.1L), Bhadaga (0.71L), Kodhugu (0.8L), Tamil (305.6L), Malayalam(170.1L), Kannada(174.2L), Thoda(0.01L), Kodha(0.80L)
  
• Middle Dravidian Group:Includes those who spoke Telugu (376.7L) and 7 of its branch languages- Kondi-(15L), Konda (13L), Bhengo and Mandha (0.13L), Kuyee (9.4L), Kuvee (1.91L), Kollamee (0.5L), Parjee (0.2L), Nayakee (0.15L), Kadhabha (0.8L), besides Sillur and Oolari.


• The Northern Dravidian Group: Includes those who spoke Kurruk (11.4L), Maltoe (0.9L), Praguey (3L), Koya

All figures relate to number of people speaking the language in lakhs (L) / hundred thousand of the population, in 1961.Totally there are about 33 numbers in all, in the Dravidian Language Speaking Group.