Page:Tamil studies.djvu/46

Rh the Aryan immigrants in India. So far as we are aware this theory was never seriously advanced or advocated by any ethnologist. Dr. Caldwell traces some affinity between Tamil and the Indo-European languages, even though their grammar and vocabulary are radically different. Further it was believed for a long time that the megalithic tombs found in some parts of India and England belonged to the ancient Gauls or Celts, which had led to a mistaken idea that the original inhabitants of India, to whom these monuments (dolmens) were attributed, were Aryans akin to the Celts of Europe. But the fact remains that the Tamils themselves called the Aryans Mlechichas or foreigners (Go Fondui. Ping, 797) in spite of any social, linguistic and other influences each might have received from the other.

The Lemurian or Selater's Theory : According to this theory the original home of the Dravidians was the now submerged continent of Lemuria, which was somewhere in the Indian Ocean before the formation of the Himalaya Mountains. This continent is supposed to have extended from Madagascar in the west to the Malay Archipelago in the east, connecting Southern India with Africa on the one side and Australia on the other. If so, the Dravidians must have entered India from the south long before the submergence of this continent. In support of this theory the following arguments have been adduced:

Ethnology: The system of totems prevailing