Page:Origin and spread of the Tamils.djvu/19



ORIGIN AND SPREAD OF THE TAMILS affinities of the Dravidians, of a relationship between the Scythians and the Dravidians, and of Mongolian and trans-Himalayan origin of the Dravidians have been proved by competent scholars untenable and baseless. Equally unconvincing is the theory of Dravidian emigration from the African continent propounded by W. Crooke. An effort has been made to identify the Tamils with the Lycians of Asia Minor who were a section of the Cretan people and who styled themselves Tremmili on the authority of their funerary inscriptions. It is argued on the strength of this fragile and almost accidental expression Tremilae that the original Dravidians were a branch of Aegean race. The Aegean civilization in its historical setting can be said to begin only from 2500 B.C. while the civilization of the Tamils may be pushed back on the evidence of archaeology by several more centuries. It has been admitted on all hands that the Lycians were not Greeks and were quite alien to Hellenistic tribes. Perhaps they were more akin to the Trojans. If this be accepted, it will be more reasonable to take the view that a section of Tamil population in the course of their adventure got settled in Asia Minor and came to be known as Tremmili. This settlement was something like the present Tamilian settlements in South Africa, Burma and Malaya and other places. There is no end to the speculation of the ethnologist." He could not escape the fact of continuity of life in South India from paleolithic to the modern times as revealed by Archaeology and History. One