Page:Origin and spread of the Tamils.djvu/40



AUTHORS OF EARLY TAMIL CULTURE and habits of life. The other types of culture were represented by the agricultural communities, Vellalar and Karalar, and pastoral communities like the Ayar whose profession was the preservation of cattle. The Palai or desert type became merged in the Kurišji or hill tribes, for there was no pālai territory in the Tamil land. The animal cuiture was fixed in unchanging social types : hunters and fishermen, agriculturists and shepherds. So the jungle and hill tribes of the littoral region cannot be treated as Pre-Dravidian nor the Mediterranean and Armenoids as Proto-Dravidian. We therefore conclude that the so called Mediterranean race had its origin in Peninsular India, which was a part of the original Dravidian home which was in the submerged continent that connected South India with Africa, when the Indo-Gangetic basin had not probably been formed. So the Dravidian element is not to be found in Indian culture alone but is largely traceable in Cretan, Aegean, Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Polynesian and other cultures of ancient world. To be on the safe ground, I plead for more and more archaeological excavation in South India. Under the triumphant spade of Dr. Schliemann, with Homer haunting his mind, Troy, Mycenae and Tiryns were reborn. Who knows that South India would not like wise astonish the world ?