Page:Pre-Aryan Tamil Culture.djvu/8

 ﻿wood previously used. They gave to metal the name of pon, the lustrous material, from pol to shine Gold was also called pon, the metal par excellence, as well as taṅgam, the superior metal, uyarnde pon, the superior (ever clean) metal. Iron was irumbu, the dark metal, from ir, dark (whence iravu, irā, night, iruḷ, iruṭṭu, iruṭchi, darkness, irundai, charcoal). Probably irumu was the earlier form of Telugu inumu. Iron was also called karumbon, meaning the black metal. Silver was veḷḷi, the white metal, and copper śembu, the red metal. That these four metals were alone known to ancient Tamil India and that tin, lead, and zinc were not known is proved by the fact that the Tamil names of these latter have been borrowed from Sanskrit. Thus tin is tagaram, lead is īyam (from Sanskrit sīsam, through Prakrit), and Zinc is tuttam (whence the English word tutty, polishing powder) or nāgam. Tin and lead are also respectively called veḷḷīyam, and kārīyam, white and black īyam, under the mistaken idea that they were black and white varieties of the same metal. Brass, an alloy of copper and zinc, was also borrowed from Aryan India, its name pittaḷai being borrowed from the Northern dialects. Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, was not unknown in ancient Tamil India, for a few bronze implements and ornaments have been discovered in early Iron Age graves; one such, a tiny kūja (with its mouth so small that the little finger could not be squeezed into it). I recovered from an ancient grave, associated with a bill-hook, whose peculiar shape, similar to that of the weapon of the village gods, betokened its great age; and this vessel was made of an alloy of copper and tin, which, on chemical analysis, was found to be remarkably free from impurities. The Bronze Age in Europe extended over long centuries, but there was no necessity in South India for a Bronze Age, because the people had discovered iron before bronze and iron is a much better material for tools than bronze. The goldsmiths of India have used bronze only for polishing hammers and for stamps and dies, because these have to be made of a material both hard and incapable of being covered with rust, which would deteriorate the faces of polishing-hammers and destroy the delicate lines of the designs incorporated in stamps, dies, and moulds. Otherwise iron alone was the material used for tools in South India throughout the ages. Bronze was called in ancient Tamil uṟai, but the fact that more bronze was imported from Northern India than was made in Southern India, is proved by the use of the words kañjīyam, kāñjiyam, from Sanskrit kāmsyam, and tāram, from Sanskrit tāra, radiant, shining, as well as the artificial compound words veṅgalam, the white vessel Malayalam veḷḷōḍu, the white shell. Bronze was worked to some extent in South India, but 'the numerous bronze objects, many of which are of great beauty from the cemeteries of the South, do not belong to an age characterized by the sole use of that alloy.'