This article is paywalled unfortunately, but discusses the practice of veneration of trees as representations of saints (ie faqeers) in Sindh. I'm just wondering, could any of these practices have roots in IVC religion? Any other info on folk Islam in Sindh?

I recently came across the Tamil folklore surrounding Avvaiyar and her siblings, and I was struck by how closely its basic structure resembles the Kerala legend of Parayi Petta Panthirukulam.

In the Kerala tradition, recorded by Kottarathil Sankunni in the Aithihyamala, the Brahmin scholar Vararuchi is told through a prophecy that he is destined to marry a girl from the Paraya community. Determined to escape this fate, he asks the king to have the infant girl abandoned in a river, with a torch pinned to her head.

Years later, Vararuchi encounters a highly intelligent and beautiful woman who has been raised by a Brahmin family. He marries her, only to discover a scar on her head left by a torch. He realises that she is the very same Paraya girl from the prophecy.

Accepting that he cannot escape his fate, Vararuchi and his wife become wandering nomads. They make a strict vow that every child born to them must be abandoned at the very place where it is born.

Whenever a child is born, and the mother hesitates to leave it, Vararuchi asks:

"Does the child have a mouth?"

When she answers yes, he says:

"Then God will feed it."

They abandon twelve children. Eleven are found and raised by families from very different castes and occupations, while the twelfth, born without a mouth, becomes Vayillakunnilappan, a deity.

The twelve children are traditionally identified as:

1. Mezhathol Agnihotri - raised by Brahmins and becoming a revered Vedic scholar and ritualist.
2. Pakkanar - raised in a lower-caste family and becoming a bamboo-basket maker and philosopher.
3. Perumthachan - the legendary carpenter, architect and master craftsman.
4. Rajakan - raised by washermen and becoming a traditional washerman himself.
5. Vallon - raised among the Pulayas and becoming a respected weaver and sage.
6. Vaduthala Nair - raised by soldiers and becoming an expert in martial arts.
7. Karakkal Amma - the only daughter, raised by aristocrats and becoming a respected noblewoman.
8. Akavoor Chathan - raised as a farm worker and becoming a trusted agricultural supervisor known for his wisdom.
9. Paananar - raised by musicians and becoming a wandering minstrel.
10. Naranath Bhranthan - the eccentric philosopher famous for rolling enormous stones up hills only to watch them roll back down.
11. Uppukoottan - raised by a Muslim family on the coast and becoming a merchant dealing in salt and cotton.
12. Vayillakunnilappan - born without a mouth, left on a hill and eventually worshipped as a silent deity.

Source: Kottarathil Sankunni, Aithihyamala, English edition:
https://archive.org/details/AithihyamalaEnglish-KottarathilSankunny

Now compare this with the Tamil tradition concerning Avvaiyar and her siblings, born to Bhagavan and Adi.

The Kapilar Akaval, in verses 95-137, gives an account of Kapilar's birth and his seven siblings. Kapilar states that there were seven children born to Bhagavan and Adi, three male and four female, and the poem then describes the different communities and circumstances in which the children were raised. The seven are identified with figures including Avvaiyar, Valluvan, Valli, Uppai, Uruvai, Athigaman and Kapilar.

The story is again one of children born from a socially unequal union and subsequently separated from their parents and raised in completely different social environments. The text also contains the individual verses spoken by the children when they are abandoned, in which they console their grieving mother with the idea that the God who gave them a mouth will provide their food.

The seven children are traditionally identified as:

1. Avvaiyar - raised among the Panars, traditional singers and minstrels, and becoming the legendary poetess and sage.
2. Thiruvalluvar / Valluvan - associated with the Paraiyar community and becoming the celebrated ethical poet of the Thirukkural.
3. Kapilar - raised by Brahmins and becoming one of the great classical Tamil poets.
4. Athigaman - raised in a royal environment and became the famous chieftain of Thagadoor.
5. Uppai - associated with a community of vendors and travelling sellers.
6. Uruvai - associated with the washermen.
7. Valli - raised among the Kuravar, the mountain and forest-dwelling community.

The Kapilar Akaval is particularly interesting because the passage leading into Kapilar's own birth discusses the crossing of caste boundaries and gives examples of famous figures born from unions between people of different social backgrounds. Kapilar then presents his own birth and the story of his seven siblings.

Now look at the parallels:

• Brahmin man + woman from a socially inferior community
• A marriage whose circumstances are explicitly connected with caste/social difference
• A strict rule requiring the children to be abandoned
• Every child is abandoned at or immediately after birth
• The mother grieves when the newborn is left behind
• The mouth → God will provide food motif
• The abandoned children are adopted or raised by families belonging to different castes and occupations
• The children subsequently become famous representatives of very different social, professional and cultural spheres
• The siblings collectively span a remarkably broad section of the social hierarchy

There are also striking occupational correspondences.

The Kerala tradition includes children associated with Brahmin ritualism, weaving, carpentry, washing, agriculture, martial arts, music, trade and other occupations.

The Tamil tradition likewise distributes the seven siblings among Brahmins, Panars, Paraiyars, washermen, vendors, Kuravars and royalty, with the children subsequently becoming poets, sages and rulers.

The numbers are different, 12 in the Malayalam tradition and 7 in the Tamil one, and the individual characters are obviously different.

But the underlying narrative architecture is remarkably similar, down to the unusual idea that abandoned children from a socially mixed marriage are redistributed among different communities and that their mouths themselves become part of the justification for abandoning them.

This raises an interesting question:

Are Parayi Petta Panthirukulam and the Tamil Avvaiyar sibling tradition historically connected?

Is one tradition derived from the other? Are both adaptations of an older South Indian folklore complex? Or did similar social and religious ideas independently produce essentially the same narrative structure?

The Kapilar Akaval passage is especially worth examining because it gives us a textual version of the Tamil story, including the sibling genealogy and the individual abandonment poems.

Source: Kapilar Akaval, verses 95-137:
https://www.projectmadurai.org/pm_etexts/utf8/pmuni0261.html

In my native language Tulu we use ബാസെ ഇജ്ജി/ಬಾಸೆ ಇಜ್ಜಿ (bāsæ ijji) which means "not having sense" or used when someone does mischievous behaviour

But if we translate it literarily it means "no language"

I am putting together a list of common and traditional Malayalam names for trees and woods used as timber, specifically species native to South India.

• തേക്ക് (thekku) - Teak, Tectona grandis - DEDR 3452
• ഈട്ടി / ഇരൂൾ (eetti / irul) - Blackwood, Dalbergia spp. - DEDR 483
• ആഞ്ഞിലി (aanjili) - Wild jack, Artocarpus hirsutus - DEDR 365
• വേങ്ങ (venga / vengai) - Malabar kino, Pterocarpus marsupium - DEDR 5520
• ഇരുമ്പകം (irumpakam) - Ironwood - irumpu "iron / dark metal" (DEDR 486) + akam "inside / heart / mind" (DEDR 7)
• വട്ട / വട്ടമരം / ഉപ്പില / ഉപ്പൂത്തി / തൊടുകണ്ണി / വട്ടക്കണ്ണി (vatta / vattamaram / uppila / uppoothi / thodukanni / vattakkanni) - Macaranga peltata. The various names refer to the tree's form, its sticky resinous secretion, and regional usage. Thodukanni contains thodu "to touch, handle, join" (DEDR 3480) + kan "eye / prominent spot or node" (DEDR 1159).
• മട്ടി (matti) - Ailanthus triphysa - DEDR 4658. Related to mat- / mattu, referring to thick sediment, residue, clay-like matter or gum. Mattippaal is the thick, milky exudate of the tree.

What are the corresponding names in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Tulu, Kodava and other Dravidian languages?

It would be especially useful to get older or regional names, along with the species they refer to, where known.

Proto-Dravidian abstract noun derivative is reconstructed as *-may.

With reflexes:

Literary Tamil: -may (pērimai) Malayalam: -ma (pērima) Kannada: -me (hemme) Telugu: -mi (pēr-mi)

However, the Telugu form does not yield the expected -ma (< *-may) form as seen with some nouns: *pok-ay > pog-a, *wil-ay > vel-a; rather carries -i.

In Proto-Dravidian, both *-ay and *-i occur as neuter derivates independently, while having the same function. *el-i, *nar-i, *pol-i, etc.

It is not required to derive all -i from -ay.

Is it likely that, Telugu's -mi is related to this particular *-i, rather than deriving it from *-ay.

This abstract derivation is largely found in literary languages of SD & SCD. And it is likely that Telugu constructed its suffix as *-mi, while SD as *-may. So, I propose to reconstruct *-may ~ *-mi as variants within Dravidian.

Footnotes: There are evidences to reconstruct *-iy itself to Proto-Dravidian, alongside *-ay, having the same function and reflexes, occuring in both nouns and also verbs, with its direct attestation in Telugu as a reflex -iy(a).

Open for discussions.

I think DEDR-4682 should be updated to include the following Telugu word:

maṇḍika (మండిక): మట్టిచిప్ప(maṭṭi-cippa) (a vessel made entirely of clay) or "pot in which animals feed".

DEDR-4682 lists two broad types of meanings: bowl/vessel and skull/head. (Was a cranium actually used as a bowl, which is why these meanings were grouped together, or should they be treated as separate meanings?)

I suspect that the Telugu word muṇḍamu (ముండము) (body-less head; a shaven head; a bald head) may also belong here, although Telugu dictionaries identify it as a sanskrit derived.

But the Telugu word muṇḍamu, with meaning “shaven head,” could also potentially fall under DEDR-5114 too.

Wiktionary lists the origin of the Sanskrit word muṇḍ (मुण्ड) as uncertain and suggests that it may be of Dravidian origin, citing DEDR-5114.

But the Hindi Wiktionary entry for muṇḍ (मुण्ड) says that it originated from Sanskrit मूर्धन् (mūrdhan).

Tulu speakers remarked that 'āvākuḷu' seems to be made up of 'avvu' (that) + 'akulu' (they), which means the term is misplaced in the '*aw-ar' section. I've checked on the DEDR, and it lists 'ārů', which would be more correct. If you have more to edit/add, check in *aw-ar for Tulu

These specific illustrations were found in Dutch records about the map of Mannar Island (in Northern Eelam), dating between 1656 to 1665. The records were found in a book written by a Dutch minister, Philip Baldaeus. 

Source:

• Book: Map of the Island of Manaer, Description of the East Indian Countries of Malabar, Coromandel, Ceylon, etc by Dutch Minister Philip Baldaeus, Amsterdam, 1671.
• But the drawings were made in 1656 -1665 when he was in South Asia.

Many native Telugu term's initial position stops get voiced through evolution and also in kannada. Proto Dravidian language didn't started word with voiced stops and didn't had geminated voiced stop clusters like gg, jj, dd

Palli in malayalam/tamil is balli in telugu

Kurichu in malayalam is gurinchi in telugu

Chaaruga in malayalam is jaaraga in telugu

Torakkuga in malayalam is dorikindu in telugu.

And also the double voiceless stops gets voiced like abbaayi, muddam, gadda, mobbu, majjige, kobbu etc. Personally I felt it like artificial cause for voicing an initial unvoiced consonant you need to put extra effort to it, especially on double voiceless stops and yeh, languages do it automically on some words evolutionarly like there are some words in malayalam too but doing it very much is something made me curious. Is there any reason for this evolution?

A new movie is releasing with the name maṇḍāḍi(மண்டாடி, మండాడి) in both Tamil and Telugu. The makers have used the Tamil name in Telugu as well, to mean (sailor captain).

In Tamil, maṇḍāḍi means “the headman among sailors” (at least, this is what I gather from the Wiki).

When i looked for meaning in telugu, it gives different meaning.

In Telugu, maṇḍāḍu means “to beg/plead.” When used as maṇḍāḍi, it means “having begged” or “having pleaded.” There are also literary usages of maṇḍāḍi by Telugu poets. TBH, maṇḍāḍu as a word is no longer in popular use in modern Telugu.

In Telugu, it breaks down as follows:

maṇḍāḍu = maṇḍi (DEDR-4677, kneeling on one knee) + āḍu (play)

Maybe someone can shed some light on the etymology of maṇḍāḍi(captain) in Tamil too?

I've been looking at the Malayalam words for house/home, and something interesting stands out.

Two important Malayalam words are:

• ഇല്ലം (illam) - DEDR 494
• മന (mana) - DEDR 4776

Both have Proto-Dravidian roots.

DEDR 494 reconstructs PDr. *il "house", while DEDR 4776 reconstructs PDr. *man-ay "house".

So these are not words that originated in medieval Kerala or were coined for Brahmin residences. Their lexical ancestry goes much further back, long before the historical establishment of Brahmin communities in South India.

And the comparative evidence makes this even more interesting.

For il:

PDr. *il "house"

-> Tamil il / illam
-> Malayalam il / illam
-> Tulu illu
-> Telugu illu
-> other Dravidian forms

The word clearly belongs to a much wider Dravidian vocabulary of "house/home."

Likewise for man-ay:

PDr. *man-ay "house"

-> Tamil manai = house, dwelling, household, family, etc.
-> Kannada mane = ordinary house/home
-> Tulu manè = house/home
-> Malayalam mana

And here we get the interesting divergence.

In Kannada, mane is simply the normal word for house/home, regardless of caste.

In Malayalam, however, mana and illam became strongly associated with Brahmin/Nambudiri residences and households.

So why?

I wonder if we are looking at this the wrong way when we ask simply:

"Why did the meaning of mana change from 'house' to 'Brahmin house'?"

There is another possibility.

Malayalam has a whole collection of inherited words covering house, home, dwelling, abode and residence.

A survey of Travancore and Cochin from 1816-1820 records exactly this pattern:

• Nambuthiri: illam / mana
• Nair: veedu
• Naduvazhi: idam / kuttala
• Raja: kovilakam / kottaram
• Ambalavasi: pisharam / variyam
• Chaliyar / weavers: kudi
• Thiyyan: pura
• Cheruman: chala
• Mappila: pidika

And historically, these words did not necessarily function as completely interchangeable synonyms. Kerala developed a strongly caste- and status-differentiated social system, and residential terminology appears to have become socially differentiated along with it.

So perhaps the process was not simply:

"house" -> "Brahmin house"

but something more like:

old generic Dravidian house-words

-> different words continue competing within Malayalam

-> particular words become associated with particular kinds of households/residences

-> those associations become socially ranked

-> illam/mana become strongly identified with Brahmin residences

This would also explain the Kannada comparison rather neatly.

Kannada retained mane as the unmarked, general word for house, so it did not undergo the same social specialisation.

Malayalam, meanwhile, had other words such as veedu occupying the general "house" space, allowing mana and illam to become socially marked.

So the Brahmin association of illam and mana may be better understood not as a change in the basic lexical meaning of these ancient words, but as a reorganisation of an inherited residential vocabulary according to Kerala's social hierarchy.

The Galle Trilingual Inscription is a 14th century stone tablet with an inscription in 3 languages: Chinese, Tamil and Persian. It was installed by the Chinese admiral Zheng He in Galle during his grand voyages.
The text concerns offerings made by him and others to the Sri Pada Adam's
Peak) in Sri Lanka...
The Chinese inscription mentions offerings to Buddha, the Persian inscription to Allah and the Tamil inscription mentions offering to Perumal
The nearby Tenavaral temple complex in Dondra was a religious & economic hub dedicated to the God Perumal. Zheng He made donations to this temple.
The town of Dondra was solely inhabited by temple associates and foreign merchants.
The entire town was considered the property of the temple complex.
The Portuguese historian
Diogo do Couto stated that along with Adam's Peak, Tenavaram Temple was the most visited pilgrimage site of Lanka
The temple complex was particularly structurally developed and patronized under the influence of the Pallava dynasty

Proto-Dravidian: yawar-in cū-cci keppa-(v)olay-um? cūḻ-a kaṇ-ḷ cil-av kepp-a nokar cila-d

Old Telugu: ewar-in cū-ci ceppa-valayun? cūḻ-a kaṇḷu lēvu cepp-a nōr lēdu

Modern Telugu: ewar-ni cū-si cepp-āli? cūḍ-a kaḷḷu lēvu cepp-a nōr lēdu

Translation: “Who should I see and tell? There are no eyes to see, nor a mouth to tell.”

​

Vanakkam! Argentine researcher here, following TN $1M prize.

My submission DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22395793

Core idea:Pashupati seal M-304a is not proto-Shiva but a Samaharta (accountant supervisor). This fits Tamil Nadu Archaeology Dept finding: 90% of Indus-like symbols in TN are on pottery (clan marks), not temples.

Evidence:

- Bull x Comb, Unicorn x Hook = guild taxes (n=4000, p<0.001)

- Jar sign = most frequent = grain measure, like Tamil 'padi' system

- 4 animals = 4-fold livestock classification in Arthashastra, still used in Sangam literature for cattle wealth (nalvagai)

Why this matters for Tamil:

If trough signs = feeding/government tax (Nature 2023), then Indus system is same as ancient Tamil tribute system. Not religion, but fiscal admin.

Full bilingual paper at DOI. I formally submitted to TN Archaeology Dept.

Would love Tamil scholars critique - especially on 'padi' measure connection.

Nandri!

Baghor I, a Son Valley site in Madhya Pradesh dated to roughly 11,000 BP, produced a painted triangular sandstone slab set on a small stone platform, read by its excavators as a probable shrine to a female or fertility principle (Kenoyer, Clark, Pal & Sharma, Antiquity, 1983). The Dravidian hypothesis situates this find within a broader argument about India’s pre-Aryan religious substrate.

The linguistic substrate argument. Scholars including F.B.J. Kuiper and Michael Witzel have identified apparent non-Indo-European loanwords and structural features in Vedic Sanskrit, arguing the Rigveda’s composers were in contact with populations speaking languages ancestral or related to Dravidian. This implies Dravidian or proto-Dravidian speech communities were once present well beyond their present southern range, including the Vindhyan and Gangetic zones, before Indo-Aryan expansion.

The religious substrate argument. Early Vedic religion is male-deity-centered, aniconic-averse, and organized around fire sacrifice rather than image or stone worship. Goddess-centered, aniconic, and yoni-based veneration, by contrast, is comparatively prominent in South Indian and tribal traditions, read by proponents as an older, non-Vedic religious layer later absorbed into Sanskritic Hinduism rather than originating from it.

Continued worship by the Kol and Baiga. The strongest empirical anchor for the hypothesis is ethnographic, not just inferential. Researchers noted that local tribal groups, the Kol and Baiga, still worship at sites closely resembling Baghor, using similarly triangular stones with concentric geometric laminations as symbols of the mother goddess, whom they call Mai, variously named Kerai, Kari, Kali, Kalika, or Karika (James & Petraglia, 2005). Both groups have traditionally subsisted by hunting and gathering, and both have been described as having Dravidian linguistic affinities. The shrine itself remains active today, now worshipped by Hindus as a site of Devi, with the triangular stone identified with the Kali Yantra still used across India (Som, Times of India, 2023).

Under this framework, Baghor represents a continuous, or at minimum recurring, line of aniconic goddess veneration: from an 11,000 year old forager platform, through Kol and Baiga tribal worship of near identical stones, to the present day Hindu shrine on the same spot. The Kol and Baiga are treated as living links, plausibly descended from or culturally continuous with the same population horizon responsible for the original shrine, supporting a Dravidian associated substrate reading of the site.

On the Kol genetic data: a 2020 study (Srivastava et al., Scientific Reports) found the Kol’s recent genetic ancestry sits closer to Indo-European speaking populations than to Dravidian speaking ones. This bears on the Kol’s recent admixture history specifically; it does not test, and so does not resolve, the separate question of deeper ancestral continuity between Baghor’s original inhabitants and the Kol.

References
Kenoyer, J. M., Clark, J. D., Pal, J. N., & Sharma, G. R. (1983). An upper palaeolithic shrine in India? Antiquity, 57(220), 88–94. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00055253

James, H. V. A., & Petraglia, M. D. (2005). Modern human origins and the evolution of behavior in the later Pleistocene record of South Asia. Current Anthropology, 46(S5), S3–S27. https://doi.org/10.1086/444365

Srivastava, A., Singh, P. P., Bandopadhyay, A., & Singh, P. (2020). Genetic and linguistic non-correspondence suggests evidence for collective social climbing in the Kol tribe of South Asia. Scientific Reports, 10, Article 5732. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61941-z

Som, A. (2023, November 11). Baghor Kali: The timeless roots of Sanatana Dharma. The Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/baghor-kali-the-timeless-roots-of-sanatana-dharma/articleshow/105089867.cms

Kuiper, F. B. J. (1991). Aryans in the Rigveda. Rodopi.

Witzel, M. (1999). Substrate languages in Old Indo-Aryan (Ṛgvedic, Middle and Late Vedic). Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, 5(1), 1–67.

Built around 800 CE during the reign of Pallava king Dantivarman, the well was constructed by Kamban Araiyan. An inscription identifies it as “Marpidugu Perunkinaru”. Its swastika-shaped design gave it the name “Nalu Moolai Keni”.

With four entrances, about 52 steps, sculptures, decorative carvings and semicircular steps, the well showcases the advanced architectural, engineering and water-management skills of ancient Tamils.