Sanskrit portion of these languages to an admixture of a foreign element of unknown origin. According to this view there was no essential difference between the ‘Drƒviras’ and the ‘Gauras’; for the Bengali and other languages of the Gaurian group appear to contain also a small proportion of non-Sanskrit words and forms, whilst in the main they are corruptions of Sanskrit. This representation fell short of the real state of the case and supposition of the derivation of the Dravidian languages from Sanskrit, though entertained in the past generation by a Colebrook, a Carey, and a Wilkins, is now known to be entirely destitute of foundation. The orientalists referred to, though deeply learned in Sanskrit and well acquainted, with the idioms of Northern India, were unacquainted or but very slightly acquainted, with the Dravidian languages. No person who has any acquaintance with the principles of comparative philology and who has carefully studied the grammars and vocabularies of the Dravidian languages, and compared them with those of Sanskrit, can suppose the grammatical structure and inflexional forms of those languages and the greater number of their more important roots capable of being derived from Sanskrit by any process of development or corruption whatsoever.”¹

     “Professor Wilson observes that the spoken languages of the South were cultivated in imitation of Sanskrit, and but partially aspired to an independent literature, that the principal compositions in Tamil, Telugu, Canarese, and Malayalam; are translations or paraphrases from Sanskrit works, and that they largely borrow the phraseology of their originals.”²

      This representation is not correct in so far as the pre-Aryan Tamil is concerned. For, the most ancient Tamil literature, which has become extinct, was vast and varied and completely free from any foreign influence. Tamil has an excellent and unique system