A Dravidian Etymology for Makara - Crocodile

[N. Ganesan]

Dear Tiru. Ashraf,

வணக்கம். Nice to know you and about your work on Indian wildlife.
Indus valley glyptic art in the seals, and our Sangam literature is full
of data about Indian fauna and flora.

Here is my paper published in Prof. VIS Commemoration Volume, Tiruvananthapuram, Kerala, 2011
under the title:

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A Dravidian Etymology for Makara - Crocodile

Abstract: The Indus valley Bronze Age saw the flourishing of the largest agriculture based civilization in the ancient world, and reached its classical era about 4200 years ago. The seals unearthed throughout the 20th century CE cover a wide geographical area of the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) and the glyptic art featured in the IVC seals show the importance of land and aquatic fauna in the cultural life. The characteristic fish sign pointing to the Dravidian language spoken by the elite Harappans has long been explored from the days of Fr. H. Heras, SJ. However, the importance of crocodiles in IVC culture is just coming to light [1]. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy was the first scholar to show that makara in the earliest stages referred to the Indian crocodile. This paper explores the importance of the crocodile as an equivalent of Proto-Varuṇa portrait in the IVC religion, and its relationship with the tiger-goddess, Proto-Durgā by analyzing the linked imagery in IVC art. A Dravidian etymology for the Sanskrit word, makara from (i) the names of the marsh crocodile in all the Dravidian languages, and (ii) the names of the crocodile in Sindh and Gujarat regions is offered. In particular, it is shown that the names in South Munda languages prevalent in Orissa are loan words from Dravidian, and they do not form part of the Austroasiatic heritage.
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In 2007, I showed in a paper the importance of Crocodiles in the Agricultural
civilization of the Indus valley. And, this Makara etymology paper is
an extension of the Crocodile cult (Vidangar - KoRRavai ) in Indus valley
written back in 2007.

Here is an important Proto-Durga seal of the Harappans:
http://nganesan.blogspot.com/2008/01/eru-tazuval.html

Fremont Library (California) Lecture in 2011
on three species of Crocodiles, their Tamil names from ancient literature,
and, esp. about ViTaGkar/iTaGkar "Gharial" and its connection
with Varuna and Shiva.
http://nganesan.blogspot.com/2012/01/fremont-library-lecture-2011.html

During the Memorial Day Weekend, May 2012, at the Tamil Nadu
Founation meeting, I will be delivering the Crocodile cult of
Indus valley, Makara Vidangar - Durga KoRRavai worship, and
the Genesis of Hinduism in the Agricultural society of Indus valley
in the Bronze Age.

Looking forward to your valuable comments.

Thanks,
N. Ganesan


Cc: S. Theodore Baskaran, Indian Naturalist,  Dharapuram/Bangalore

[Ashraf NVK]

Dear Mr. Ganesan,

I haven't heard from you on my previous mail. Now, coming to the issue of the word 'tahr' being a word of Dravidian origin, I have this piece of information from a scientist at Wildlife Institute of India. His may has been copy pasted below:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ssk <s...@wii.gov.in>
Date: Thu, May 31, 2012 at 4:32 PM
Subject: Re: Recent Publications
To: "Dr.Ashraf Nvk" <ash...@wti.org.in>

Dear Ashraf,

Madhuca puzzle will be solved soon as I have requested Dr. Adhikari for some help in this regard.

Regarding the word "tahr", it is unlikely that it may have originated from Tamil.  Of the three species of tahrs, the first one to be described was Himalayan tahr "Hemitragus jemhalicus" by Smith in 1826 followed by Nilgiri tahr  "Hemitragus hylocrius" by Oligby in 1838.  Nilgiri tahr was also known  as "Capra warrayato" by Gray (somewhere between 1844-1870 and the word tahr was already in practice)  "Tahr" was probablay derived from the nepali word "thar" a local name for tahr in some parts of Nepal and Uttarakhand.  In Hindi, thar = male; and thane = female tahr.

Regards
S.Sathyakumar 

Regards,

NVK Ashraf
C.O.O.
Wildlife Trust of India
F-13, Sector 8, NOIDA
UP - 201301 (India)
Phone (M): +91-9810568428
Phone (L): +91-120-4143919

On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Ashraf NVK <nvka...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Mr. Ganesan,

It was nice speaking to you over phone the other day. Was indeed a pleasant surprise.

I read your article with great interest and it obviously revolves around many assumptions. It will be always difficult to conclusively prove which came first: chicken or egg? You have pointed out some striking similarities, and amongst all, the resemblance of "தகர்" to "tahr" drew my attention the most.

Before I get into details, I would like to know about the use of word "மகரம்" in Tamil to mean crocodile. I did not come across this word in Kalittokai (as you mentioned), but only in Akananuru where it has been taken to mean ‘fish’ – see poem 81. In my blog, I said ‘elaathi’ – the 8-10^th century work – has this word, but it seems to have been employed even earlier during Sangam period (But did it mean a croc or fish that time?). I would appreciate the verse number in Kalithogai that has மகரம் in it.

Thanks,
Ashraf

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