Red God of the Dravidian speakers, the most important divinity in their pantheon, was first rendered into the Aryan speech as *Rudhra, and then this name was easily identified with an already existing Aryan Storm God, the father of the Maruts or the Storm Winds, whose name Rudra in Aryan meant quite a different thing-"the Roarer" (from root rud).4 The name Umā recalls Mā, the Great Mother of the Asianic and East Mediterranean peoples: and Durgā, as one of the common epithets of the Mother Goddess Umā, we can compare with Trqqas, a deity mentioned in the Lycian inscriptions of Asia Minor.5Vishṇu .is partly Aryan, a form of the Sun-God, and partly at least the deity is of Dravidian affinity, as a sky-god whose colour was of the blue sky (cf. Tamil, viṇ "sky" and the Middle Indo-Aryan or Prākrit form of Vishṇu, which was viṇhu, veṇhu).6Srī is, to start with, an Aryan divinity, the Indian counterpart of the Goddess connected with the harvest or corn and with wealth, beauty, and well-being, whom we find in the Italic world as Ceres among the Latins. But in her association with Vishṇu, as Gaja-lakshmī for instance, she is indigenous and pre-Aryan.7Kṛīshṇa (in Prākrit Kaṇha, in Tamil Kaṇṇan) is a demon opposed to Indra in the Ṛgveda; according to P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar, he represnts, partially at least, a Dravidian God of Youth, who has later been identified with Vishṇu as an incarnation of his. Another Dravidian God of Youth and youthful powers, of bravery and war, was Murukan, who in the composite Puranic mythology became Kumāra or Skanda, the son of śiva.8Gaṇeśa the elephant-headed demon who was to be appeased at the outset of any function to avert supernatural hindrances, remained such a demon with the Mahāyāna Buddhists, but with the Brahmanical Hindus he was transformed into the benign god who removes obstacles and who typifies wisdom. The very character of the god as having an elephant-head shows his native Indian, i.e., pre-Aryan origin. The phallic symbol of śiva, the linga, appears to be, both in its form and name, of Austric or Proto-Australoid origin. We should remember that the mysterious upright conical stones set up on the ground (like the menhirs in the Celtic areas in Europe) were very much in evidence as cult objects among the Mon-Khmers and the Kols, and these bore a resemblance to the digging stick used among ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4 P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar (lyengar), Life in Ancient India in the Age of the Mantras (Madras, 1912), p. 125; Dravidic Studies, No. Ill, pp. 61-62. 5 S. K. Chatterji, "Dravidian Origins and the Beginnings of Indian Civilization," (MR, Dec. 1924, p. 679). 6 P. T. S. Aiyangar, op- cit., p. 126. 7Dravidic Studies, No. Ill, p. 62. 8 cf. also Pre-Aryan Tamil Culture. |