own "When the first so called Aryans come to peninsular India with their Brahmi script, their horses.... they found a relatively dark-skinned people with a highly developed village civilization, an active agriculture, merchant marine, well developed internal and international trade routes, and a set of gods and goddesses (a pantheon) of their which did not in all cases coincide with the Vedic pantheon, but which had areas of congruence. The land and the people of peninsular India accepted the brahmins as their priestly caste, used the Brahmi script as a basis for developing syllabaries to suit the South Indian languages, modified and adapted folklore and religious lore, but throughout this process the South Indian genius for absorption, adaptation and adoption conferred on each new cultural contribution accepted from the North a changed character, subtly endowing it with a South Indian cast." Thus wrote Albert B. Franklin, U.S. Ambassador to India some years back in the 'American Review'.
to In the chapters that follow an attempt is made to show how by and large the assessment made by a scholar statesman of the west in modern days is true to a large extent, how the warp and woof of Indian culture is a blend of Aryan and Non-Aryan, particularly Dravidian, about which we have more evidence literary, epigraphic etc. While trying to identify the Dravidian element, the task on hand is confined to Tamil language, people and land viz-a-viz the Aryan as the scope of my project is Sanskrit-Tamil contact. It is difficult pinpoint anything as cent percent Dravidian or Aryan because the fusion had taken place even at the commencement of recorded history. Yet attempts have been made in the direction of such identification by scholars like Herbert Slater, Father Heras, Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, T. Burrow, Ananda Coomaraswamy, A.L. Basham to mention a few. It is necessary to make such a study so that a balanced view is taken in matters regarding the contribution of regional cultures of India to the composite culture of India. Such a study may help the cause of National integration. The consciousness of Bharat being one land has always been there in spite of internecine quarrels among the states both in the north and in the south as the political history of our country shows. The series of intrusions of foreigners such as the Persians, Greeks, Sakas, Moguls and Europeans have not created a dent in this awareness of one Nation with broad agreements in matters regarding culture. The waves after all form part of the sea. The ripples and storms on the surface do not alter the deep sea at the bottom.
It is proposed to examine certain salient features of the Sanskrit Tamil contact in the fields of grammar and linguistics, form and theme of literature, arts and crafts Religion and philosophy, and certain aspects of social life and culture of Tamil Nad. Obviously the study cannot be deemed exhaustive. It is only a pointer. The study may be enlarged and may be undertaken in depth in future by competent scholars. What is attempted is only to show certain areas of contact between the people from the north who moved down south, settled in Tamil Nad influenced their thoughts, shaped their beliefs and practices and in turn changed their own thoughts, beliefs and practices by coming into contact with the Dravidians already there, threw their lot with them, identified themselves with their aspirations and helped in building up a composite culture that fitted with the all India pattern of culture and civilisation. It was never a one way traffic. Both gained and lost something in the process which is but inevitable in the growth of any dynamic nation.
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