DRAVIDIAN VERSUS ARYAN CULTURE

Abstract

In the Dravidavrutta, south of Vindhya and Satpura mountains, there flourished in India from very ancient times, say pre-Vedic times, a composite culture generally known as the Dravidian culture. Linguistically it was a mixture of an interspersed language group of people living in overlaping geographical boundaries, called Tamilnadu, Teligudesam, Karnataka and Kerala, where people were speaking Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam respectively. Although there appears in later times in this region a spontaneous permeation of Vedic Sanskritic culture and language, except Malayalam, all other three languages kept up their respective vernacular characters integrally and were least affected by the Aryan cultural genres of the Sanskritic language structures. So the regional linguistic specialities, slangs, nuances and idioms, which express the genius of the customs, traditions, practices, beliefs, myths and other symbolic structures of these Dravidian peoples survived the tests of time in spite of numerous onslaughts from the dominating intruders of the Aryavrutta, north of Vindhya and Satpura, as often epitomised in the Epic Ramayana and some Puranas of the Aryan culture. In the context of understanding the cultural roots of the Dalits of the south Indian origins a search for the truth and myth of Dravidian Culture is significant.