Mesopotamia and South Indians: A New Approach

Santhri N.Mahalingam Superintending Engineer (Retd) Tamilnadu PWD

ABSTRACT
South India had cultural connections with the Mesopotamia region even before or during pre-History is well established by the historians. To add support to their view new proofs have been found by a new approach. The approach utilized the surnames (family names) and caste names of certain communities. In addition the existence of offerings to temple towers (Gopurams), eye-idols, the appearance and ornaments of Kurdish women etc., are brought to the notice of the scholars just to create awareness. Mesopotamia is considered as the cradle of human civilization. But it is said that the former Chief Minister of Tamilnadu late C.N.Annadurai has stated, in one of the conferences, that it is the banks of Cauvery the cradle of Human civilization. The affinities between the two regions may in the long run; with sufficient research effort may prove that the above statement could be a reality. The archaeological investigations at the site El Kown in Syria lead to the conclusion that even about 15,000 years ago those villages have been built, seeds sown and cultivated crops, the animals domesticated. About 6,000 years later, on further development cities have been built and script for their language evolved. These people have left traces to highlight their daily life and the tools they have used. The above evidence came to light due to the limited scale investigations conducted at Syria and Anatolia of Turkey. There are hundreds of un-explored earthen mounds called as Tell or Tepe are available, So far only a few mounds have been excavated for archaeological research. I believe apart from Harappa and Mohenjo Daro there are no similar ancient sites in existence for archaeological excavations in the Indian SubContinent. A map showing some sites in Syria where excavations are conducted is furnished. Similar excavations are going on in Iraq and Turkey.

Archaeological Sites in Syria

The map shows among other sites Tell Barak which was the ancient city of Nagar and Tell Mardik which was the ancient city of Ebla. The two places where the two families mentioned in this article had their roots. The picture below shows the earth mound now called Tell Barak where the ancient city Nagar existed.

Tell Barak or ancient Nagar

Mesopotamia region was inhabited by people of different races from 1, 20,000 BCE to 1500 BCE. The investigations lead to confirm the information of the people given in the Bible. The scholars in charge of the excavations are skeptical about the migration or disappearance of the people lived in that epoch. Present techniques available are inadequate to clear their skepticism. So it is essential that new techniques are to be developed to get an answer to this question. Based on the use of family names and place names to find the displacement of people in the remote past presented in Overlooked Clues of Ancient History is used in
this paper to find an answer,

Recent excavations in the Mesopotamia region established that the 4100 BCE ancient city Nagar was located in the earth mound and archaeological site Tell Barak and the ancient city Ebla is now at Tell Mardikh. Besides the capital of the ancient kingdom Arappa is said to be buried under the present Irakian city of Kirkuk, The names of these ancient cities are central to the investigation presented. In addition to Tamil speaking population a large number of other Dravidian languages like Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam as well as other miscellaneous language speaking people also live. So it is thought that selecting a community as a Marker

Community to study the movement could yield some clue. For this the families should have family name or surname. Then by trial and error a family name that will indicate a place name is to be selected. Telugu speaking people generally have their family names. Some of them could be based on the place of their ancestors. The author of this paper belongs to Telugu speaking Devangar community and has some knowledge of family names of near relatives and has done some investigations presented in the paper Overlooked Clues of Ancient History . The community derived its name for weaving a
garment by name Devangam in ancient epochs, perhaps even before the Sangam age. Some say the name is mentioned one of the Sangam Classics but the author could not locate it. Devangar community has two branches one branch speaks Telugu and the other branch Kannada. The two branches of Devanga communities appear to be migrating together as they are found in different localities of the same city or village. The community deity is Chowdeswari and they celebrate the festivals from time to time but not yearly. The temple for this Amman is found wherever the community lives in large numbers. These temples are managed by the community itself and the priests are generally from the community.

The families of this community have family names, some of which indicate the roots of the family. But some other names may not indicate the place of origin. Sometimes the family name indicates only a recent origin. For example one family member of the community is called as Anakaputhur Ramalingam. But his real family name could be different. Some of the family names indicate the place name of their very remote origin but some names indicate recent origin. The clinging to the old family name indicates that they may be following their ancient language and traditions. For this investigation only a few family names known to the author has ben considered. They are Santhri, Karna, Bhirrana, Banalu, and Arappa The places with names Santhri and Bhirrana are found in Haryana State. Karna(l) is another place in the same state. The family name Karna could have been modified as Karnal or vice versa. Similarly the place name of Harappa could be a modified version of the place name of Arappa buried under the Irakian city Kirkuk, the capital of the ancient Kingdom Araapa. Banalu is a place name in Punjab. These places are in the Indus valley. So these families could have settled in South India by successive movement through various places in the Indian Sub-continent This migration might have started on the demise of Indus civilization. I believe that there could not have been any change in their traditions and mother tongues like their clinging to the old surnames. As earlier indicated the Kannada speaking branch of Devangas also moved with Telugu speaking branch perhaps they are all weavers and share the same cultural traditions. But they do not have the tradition family names similar to Telugu speaking Devangars. Therefore it is to be concluded that Telugu and Kannada was spoken more than 2000 years ago in Indus valley. The author does not know any Tamil speaking families with families having surnames similar to Telugu Devangars. So no studies could be made to trace the movement of Tamil speaking communities. Other Telugu speaking communities could also do a similar exercise to widen the ambit of the investigation. Similar investigation involving two family names and one community name indicate the possibility of their ancestry to Mesopotamia.

Following this on search in internet revealed the existence of an ancient Kingdom by name Arappa around 1,600 BCE, having the same name as its capital which now lies buried under the Irakian city of Kirkuk where the Kurdish tribe outnumber Arabs. Therefore the family with the surname as Arappa could have its roots in Mesopotamia. Either the Mesopotamian city had its name borrowed from Harappa of Indus valley or perhaps the Kingdom of Arappa could be a colony of some Indus valley state.
An effort was made to find additional evidence to strengthen the migration theory by comparing the traditional and cultural pointers between that prevail in certain communities and those of some people of Mesopotamia region who still cherish their traditions. One of the important pointers is the reverence to mother Goddess. Evidence is not lacking in spite of washing out of the culture and civilization of the people of Mesopotamia by the Christian missionaries and Islamic Jehadis. Now and then come out the statues of mother Goddesses in the region, Nippur, Uruk and etc.,, . They have different names in different places like our number of Ammans having various names from place to place. In one place the name of the mother Goddess is (N)amma. Does it not similar or modified form of Amma. They had festivals similar to us with offerings, sacrifices, processions and etc. The temples had our Rajagopuram like pyramidal

structures called Ziggurats. The ziggurats were considered a place closer to the heavens, a gateway and shrine to the gods and a place for the ruler god of the sky (An in Sumer, Marduk in Babylon and Ashur in Assyria) to lay his feet upon. Each shrine was named after a single god, and with the development of the wide ranging Sumerian civilization these gods became part of a Pantheon or single family of divinities. Almost all are similar to our deities. They offered sacrifices to the Ziggurats as we sometimes pray before a Rajagopuram of a temple complex. Two sculptors depicting the offerings to Ziggurat as well as a typical Gopura(M) of a South Indian Temple are given below.

A Rajagopuram of Temples in South India

Reverence to Ziggurat The Shia sect of Muslims takes out processions during Muharram festival. An important event in the procession is the devotees striking their bodies, chest and back, with swords or knives. This practice should have existed in the Mesopotamia region in the ancient times as offering for the fulfillment of a vow. Perhaps the same was adopted in the Muharram procession also when they decided to atone for the martyrdom of their prophet. The same practice of striking the chest and back with knives and swords are followed in the Chowdeswari Amman festival processions of Devangars. Does it show that Devangars also might have their ancestry in Mesopotamia region where they worshipped the same Chowdeswari Amman? Does it mean that they spoke Telugu or Kannada in that region? The specialists concerned should examine this question. Moreover Arabs live in southern part of Iraq whereas Kurdish people live in the North. Some scholars believe that Arabs were immigrants from Saudi Arabia region and the Kurds were the natives of Iraq. Whatever it may be, it appears the traditional life could be similar to that of South Indians. The picture given in the Annexure A. was taken at a marriage function of three Kurdish women in their traditional dress. Note similarities between the jewelry they wore and that of South Indian women. Their appearance also looks like Indian with the nose-studs and all. They lack only Saree as their apparel. To me the woman at the center looks like the actress Nalini. Even though most of them were converted to Islam still there are pockets where the tribes practice their ancient religion and Al-Qaeda forcing them to convert according to TV News in 2006-2007.

Eye Idols Hundreds of idols shown in the picture were found in an ancient temple complex in the city of Nagar now called as Tell Brak. They called the temple as eye temple. They do not know why so many idols were found in this temple also called as Eye Temple. But similar baked mud idols of about 30 cm. length were offered at Mariamman temples to fulfill the vows of devotees. The people of Mesopotamia also might have done the same kind of offerings that is why hundreds of the idols were found at the temple site. Perhaps it may also be cited as a cultural affinity. So far the details of investigation using the family names of Telugu Devangars were furnished. On searching for the other castes having surnames by chance a Saurastra community family gave their family name as Ebla. Their mother tongue is not Tamil. The community specializes in silk weaving. They are found throughout Tamilnadu and perhaps in other Southern States also. They also might have migrated to the southern states along with the Devangars. The map given in the beginning of this article shows the location of this place.

Excavation site of Ebla The site Ebla is located in Syria about 55 km., South east of Aleppo. It was an important city state during the periods 3000 BCE to 2000 BCE and 1800 BCE to 1650 BCE. This place is now called as Tell Mardikh. This city was destroyed by Akkadians

and several centuries later it regained some of its ancient importance. . Again it was destroyed around 1650 BCE it continued as a small city for some time till 700 A.D and abandoned by the people. Later the site was discovered by the archaeologists. Perhaps the Saurastra community at one stage migrated to Saurastra region of Gujarat and then migrated to the south. The ancient city of Nagar is located east of Ebla as shown in the map. This city predates the rule of Akkadians. During Akkadians period also it was an important city. The remains of this city exist on a 40 meter high mound called Tell Brak in the Kabur valley of Syria. There are traces of human occupation even before 6,000 BCE. This city was destroyed two times and rebuilt after this epoch. The scholars believe that it was occupied by humans till 700 A.D. and abandoned later. The name of the place Nagar immediately indicated the South Indian merchant community Nagaraththar living in Chettinad but of course disbursed throughout Tamilnadu and spilled over to other southern States also. But these people believe that they were not the natives of Chettinad but hails from Kancheepuram. But the name of that place is not Nagar. I believe that the origin of this community could be this ancient city of Nagar. So these Tamil speaking people also had their origin in Mesopotamia region like Devangas and Saurastras. So far the investigation proceeded without knowing their history. Wikipedia states that the origin of Devangar, considered as a branch of Smartha Brahmins, is Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh. The hero stones in Hampi states that the kings Bhattaraja and Bojaraja both belong to this community Saurastra community people had their ancestral places at Mandasar, Thakapura towns, later during Vijayanagara period migrated to Hampi where their language got modified by the influence of Marathi, Telugu and Kannada languages. Later they migrated to Madurai during Nayaks rule and disbursed through out Tamilnadu in the course of time. This weaver community also appears to have migrated along with Telugu and Kannada Devanga communities.

According to Wikipedia Nagaraththars were once a merchant community Poompuhar from which place migrated to 96 villages of Pudukkottai, Sivagangai districts in ancient times. The community derived its name as Nagaraththar as they lived in very spacious buildings in Nagars. The scholars believe the Irakian city Nagar had once spacious buildings in the ruins of which clay tablets with commerce related information were found. Moreover in those days the artisans of various trades lived in villages around this type of cities, The communities like Nahar, Nairs of Kerala, Nagas of Nagaland might have also migrated from the ancient city Nagar as the names have the same root Naga. The Mesopotamian scholars, as mentioned in the earlier part of this paper, are uncertain about the origin of the people who lived in that epoch as well as their

destination on their flight from that place is to be born in mind. They felt on a study of the sites Yahroud and Hummal they arrived at the conclusion based on the advances of the habitants in culture and techniques, compared to other sites in the region, the people could have come from other planets. The conclusion drawn about the link between the people of Mesopotamia and the people of South India is not final. The facts presented are only to create awareness among the scholars the existence of them and hitherto overlooked. The question among civilizations which of the two, Indus valley civilization and Mesopotamian civilization, is earlier one is yet to be resolved. Similarly which one of these is to be considered the cradle of civilization, Africa or Middle-East Asia or or Asia is another question mark. Dr. Eric Bda, the Archaeologist who conducted excavations in Mesopotamia region opines that first immigrants to Middle-East Asia could be from Asia. Will the investigations described in this paper help to resolve the above questions is to be investigated. The Annexure; B: gives evidence that Chaldea of Mesopotamia region was a colony of Chola-Desa. The author records his appreciation to Alliance Franais de Madras, ICHR Regional Centre Bengaluru, Mythic Society, Bengaluru for providing access to their libraries.

Some References : Alain Danielou ;Histoire de L'Inde, Editions du Fayard. Aline Kiner et Dominique Leglu, Des premires tribus aux premires divinits,: p - 46, Sciences et Avenir, Janvier 2008 Arjunan Pillai.M : Ancient Indian History, Ashish Publishing House,New Delhi Chandrika G.: The Impact of iridology on Early History of Tamilnadu, Tamilnadu History Congress, Mayiladuthurai, 2005. Closset T.O. - Dravidian Origin and Philosophy of the Human Speech Gandhimadi K.: Pataliputra of Asncient Tamillagam, Tamilnadu History Congress, Mayiladuthurai, 2005

De Frank Viviano. Les Kurds, National Geographic, France, Janvier, 2006. Eric Boda, La Naissance du Sacr au Proche-orient, Sciences et Avenir, Janvier 2008 Mahalingam S.N. An Outline for Research in Prehistory of India, International Symposium on Indus Civilization and Tamil Language, 15 &16-22007, Chennai. Mahalingam S.N Overlooked Clues of Ancient History and Indus Seals and Human Evolution: International Conference on Indian History, ICIH 2009 Mahalingam S.N Roots of Ancient Indians, International Waves Conference 'WAVES 2008"., Orlando.Fl., USA. Rao L.S., et al: New Light on the Excavation of Harppan Settlement Bhirrana, Pouratattuva, No.37,2006 - 2007. Satyanarayana Das and Sunanda Das - Dravidian in North Indian Toponomy - All India Association of Historical and Comparative Linguistics, Varanasi - 1981 Sesha Iyengar T.R. Dravidian India, Coomarasamy Naidu & Sons, 1933 Srinivasa Aiyangar M. Tamil Studies - Asian Educational Service, New Delhi 1982. Srinivasa Iyengar. P.T. - History of Tamils from the Earliest Times to 600 AD. : IK : I M - C 81,- 6 HK 2 Upadyaya Dr.U.P. and Upadyaya Mrs.S.P. - Dravidian and Negro African - Rashtrakavi Govinda Pai Birth Centenary Series-Rashtrakavi Govinda Pai Research InstituteM.G.M. Campus, UDUPI - 576102.

Annexure A:

Annexure B: 2. Brief Note on Chaldeans: by S.N.Mahalingam. 1. Miss Cossley Batt who visited a Chaldean tribe living in caves at an altitude of 28,000 feet on the Himalayas discovered that 'the years of the tribe are nine months long and it is said that according to our years of twelve months, several of these men and women are more than a hundred years old.' (Quarterly Journal of Mythic Society. Vol.XXI. No.#. p.308). It is presumed that the revolutions of the earth as well as its circum ambulation around the Sun are more compared to the present. The Sumerians or Chaldeans were decidedly Indian in type like a southern Hindu of the Deccan. Dr. Abinas Chandra Das (: Rigvedic India. Vol. I. pp.201-202) thinks that the Cholas who went to the west formed a colony of their own and gave it the name of Chaldea and derives the word Chaldea from Choladesa - Chaldea - Chaldeo. There are abundant evidences for the Chaldean or the Babylonian civilization bore the stamp of the Hindu civilization. This together with the observation of Prof.Max Mueller cited earlier that If an answer need be given as to the place where our Aryan ancestors dwelt before their separation, I should still say, as I said forty years ago, somewhere in Asia, 'and no more'. That before separation as Tamil speaking and Sanskrit speaking people they spoke a language which is the mother of these two languages. In the course of time southern part of Jambu-Dvipa or Navalan Thivu spoke Tamil and the Northern part might have been constituted of the people speaking Sanskrit. To attest this even now in a small village by name Mathur in Shimoga district of Karnataka people speak Sanskrit. The only place in the world where Sanskrit is spoken to-day. Perhaps literary Sanskrit was developed to transcribe the wisdom of all the dialects spoken in the region. Ganapati Stapati a Sanskrit and Tamil Scholar is of the view that Sanskrit is also a South Indian Language. Sangam classics call the people in Karnataka region as Vadugar. So the language might have got the name Vadugar Mozhi or Vada Mozhi. .