Chapter One

PREHISTORY AND PROTOHISTORY

The earliest evidence for the existence of the Dravidians as a people with a distinct culture comes from the remains of the Indus Valley and from such prehistoric sites as Ādichanallῡr in South India. As one of the following selections says: "The assumption that the Mohenjo-daro and Harappā people spoke a primitive Dravidian speech accords best with the subsequent trend of Indian history and civili­zation." Literary sources, both Tamil and Sanskrit, also contain data concerning elements of Dravidian culture from which authors draw various inferences. The authors of the following extracts discuss the origin and the customs of the Dravidian speaking peoples and the pre-Aryan and non-Aryan elements in Indian culture.

I. The Land and the People

M. RUTHNASWAMY, a member of India's Parliment, and a former Vice-Chancellor of the Annamalai University, South India, speaks of Southern India as geologically the more ancient part of India. The reading is taken from a popular book on Indian history written for an American public: India from the Dawn, The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, 1949, pages 1 to 4.

HISTORY IN INDIA begins in the south. It has begun in the south everywhere else in the world, in Europe, in America, in Asia. The only apparent exception is Africa, but northern coastal Africa really belongs geographically and historically to southern Europe. On account of its more agreeable climate, its greater wealth of wood and water, its nearness to the sea, the south is the first rung in the ladder of civilization and culture in any country. It was so in India.

Geologically the south is the more ancient part of India. The