Chapter Eight

DRAVIDIANS AND ARYANS

I. Dravidian Traditions in India

In the composition of Indian Culture, some authorities ascribe a preponderant share to Dravidian Culture. One of those who has written extensively on this subject is the late Father H. HERAS, S.J. of St. Xavier's College, Bombay. This reading is from his book Studies in Proto-lndo-Mediterranean Culture, Vol. I, Heras Institute of Indian History and Culture, Bombay, 1953 in which he cites several authorities in support of his views. In his book, Professor Heras has also attempted to read the Indus Valley seals. He reads them as a Proto-Dravidian language, a proto form of Tamil. The following reading is taken from pages 6 to 13, and 20 to 21 of his book.

REALIZED long ago that the culture of the Dravidians before the Aryan invasions, had developed extraordinarily in all branches of human activity. "The chief opponents of Aryan progress," says he, "were the Dravidian races, who had covered the country with a network of strongly centralized and well established governments." ¹ And he continues elsewhere: "There is ample evidence to show that it was not the Aryans who made India a great exporting country." ² "The Kolarian and Dravidian settlers," he adds, "had founded and maintained a flourishing inland and foreign trade long before the advent of the Aryans, and this trade could only have been begun and kept up by a people who had made great advances in civilization."³

The Bāveru Jātaka has undoubtedly kept the tradition of one of

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¹ Hewitt, JRAS., 1889, p. 188.

² Ibid., p. 199.

³Ibid.