Dear Sir,
This is wrt the post
http://www.tamilbrahmins.com/sociology/4455-brother-sister-marriages-our-puranas-2.html#post49971 It is long and have therefore divided it.
Puranas:
Is it possible to identify which parts of the puranas were added on at which points of time in history based on (possible ?) philological and archeological evidence (of places and events mentioned in the puranas)?
We find scholarly opinions about particular episode/s or part/s of a purana as a later interpolation/s, in their papers or books but, to the best of my knowledge no one has so far undertaken such a task covering even the malor (18) puranas. Mahabharata has been studied in detail in this respect and there is indication in that book itself that it has had three beginnings. The general consensus is that the bhaaratha was subjected to large scale revision twice, once by Bhargava interests (Bhrigu and his descendants getting prominence) and the second, a Vaishnava revision so as to make it have a predominantly Vaishnava slant with Krishna being painted as incarnation of God.
It is impossible to identify the time of revision with any precision.
The purana writers are said to be diff from the composers of the Vedas (how true wud that be ??). It is obvious the purana writers had astounding knowledge of the geography of the world (but the composers of vedic hymns did not mention as many regions nor such geographical details).
Philologically, the Puranas as we have these now, are written mostly in post-Panini Sanskrit, whereas RV, parts of YV etc., are in vedic sanskrit, not following Panini strictly. Panini succeeded in straitjacketing a language which would have, but for his interference, flourished as English today, with the common people using it. (Since he revented any deviation and such rigorously regulated language was monopolised for the spread of brahmanism, apabhramsa and prakrit
took its place, morphed into the various NI languages of today. Bengali seems to have the highest sanskrit likeness but some linguists say that it has more dravidian grammatical structure resemblance.)
In view of the above, the puranas in their present form must have been very much later than the vedas, definitely. The geographical awareness of the purana-writers or the interpolators (because many such slokas or portions/ episodes could be very late interpolations which might not distrat from the main theme of the episode in which it is interpolated) would necessarily have been the more because the RV people IMO, entered from the NW and spread slowly up to Kanyakubja and then towards Saurashtra and Deccan.
Wud it be possible that some of the puranic stories are ancient (corresponding to the period earlier than the vedic period) but were an oral tradition that got written down after the vedic period?
Possible. But it would be impossible to take a particular story and then decide whether it existed from vedic times or was only memory of a subsequent event.
If Sri Yamunacharya (10th century) and Sri Ramanuja did not refer to Bhagavatha Purana, wud it mean that this purana was written / composed after the 11th century?
Either Bhagavatha did not exist or it was not considered an authentic
text to quote from. (not a "pramaana" as they used to say).
About this Shloka:
कर्णाटकाश्च तैलंगा द्राविडा महाराष्ट्रकाः ।गुर्जराश्चेति पञ्चैव द्राविडा विन्ध्यदक्षिणे ॥
[[Karnataka, Tailanga, Dravida, Maharashtra, Gurjara are the 5 regions to the south of Vindhyas]]
I have seen this mentioned in quite a few articles on wiki. Please cud you tell me which purana is this shloka from?
This I think is not found in any purana; it is from the 'Rajatarangini' of
Kalhana (12th. century Kashmiri court poet).
[[An aside: I came across an article mentioning this shloka in the context of the recent struggle for a separate telangana. The argument goes that tailanga was a separate region while the andhras (andhrakas) constituted a separate region in the past; which is true:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/EpicIndia.jpg
Speculation or argument goes that Tailanga (Telinga or Telingana) was Dravida while Andhraka (or Andhra desa or Andhra) was Prakrit Aryan (or Mlecchas going by Mahabharat). Funny that these things are used to justify a separate statehood ages after the itihaasa period (I can understand statehood demand from a purely political view or for land development purpose but not long after the kichadi of ethnicity has been cooked).
India had never been one country. But for short periods under powerful monarchs like Ashoka or Aurangzeb, most were small kingdoms and petty fiefdoms warring with each other. Even under British colonial rule what we had was about 700 or so princely states under the British suzerainty.
Our freedom fighters dreamt that they would be able to
form a "unity of mind" among all these very widely disparate people. Unfortunately, they also used 'hatred for the British' as a major tool - a negative mental attitude which presupposes an enemy, something to be hated - for the union to fructify; "Quit India" is the best example for this. Once the enemy (British) disappeared, the 'feeling of oneness' which was dependent on the presence of the enemy, waned becasue such unity was not there for ages. The people were not made patriotic subsequently also in the real sense of the term, since the politicians started making use of caste, religion, language, etc., to create vote banks for themselves. Hence the age-old divisions and hatreds which remained under the surface, started expressing again. Linguistic reorganization of states signalled one way, which would, in future, have Govtal acquiescence, for alleviating some of these differences. Almost all movements in India since Independence have been forged on the sure theme of negatives - anti-Hindi, anti-brahmin, anti-landlords, anti-Madrasi,etc. This process happens in all similar 'artificially united' social groups once the iron grip over them gets loosened. Eastern Europe after the break-up of USSR is a recent example. When they cite "tailanga" they are only referring to their longstanding differences.
The clamour for Telengana is a very mild one compared to what DMK threatened long back in regard to the Hindi issue.
Tribes like the Gonds (the original settlers of these regions) add more confusion to the story bcoz though Gondi language is Dravidian and related to Telugu, it is not really clear where telugu language itself is derived from]].
Though I don't have knowledge of philology, it appears to me that Telugu like the other three major dravidian languages has essentially a dravidian structure with word borrowings from sanskrit, like in
modern Malayalam.
I suppose all these dravida regions have always shared a continuous common history.
I don't think so. If you will see the history books the dravida regions had very different
political histories and the kings were fighting each other. It was the
result of such longstanding embitterment which culminated in Potti
Sriramulu's fast unto death.
Gujarat has always been fascinating. Imo, it appears that people have always been moving from Gujarat into the current Karnataka-Andhra regions via Maharashtra; and I really won’t be surprised if Krishna bhagavan of the Mahabharat turns out to be a Chora (Chola) king.
There is some discrepancy in your two statements. If Krishna is a Chola king, people should be moving from the south to the north since Krishna's kingdom is never stated to have been in, or, extended up to south. I am also not sure whether "people" (all classes, that is) were moving from Gujarat via Maharashtra to Karnataka-Andhra. Brahmins might have come, but there seems to be no record of even a periodic influx of that sort.
If indeed Tailanga was Dravida, and Andhraka was Prakrit Indo-Aryan, it wud mean that the dravida speakers and the indo-aryan speakers lived alongside each other in Southern India during the Mahabharat period. Considering that the Mahabharat also mentions the Sinhalese (Indo-Aryan speakers), I wud consider that to be true. And if that is true, we can hopefully assume that indo-aryan speakers or dvijas lived in the south since the mahabharat times itself.
You will see that Kalhana talks about a category Dravidaa, in addition to Karnaataka, Tailangaa, Maharaashtraka and Gurjara. So, Tailangaas were different from Draavidaas even according to him. Mahaaashtraka and Gurjara never spoke anything dravidian and the sloka expressly states that these five groups resided south of the Vindhyas, nothing about a common language etc. I will not, therefore, venture into any conclusions of the type you state. Mere mention of Sinhala cannot mean that there were Indo-Aryan (IA) speakers here.
We don't say that the Yavana kingdom had Indo-Aryan speakers
simply because its name is mentioned in mahabharata (M.Bh.). Whether IA speakers were there in the south at the time of M.Bh, also does not lead us anywhere unless we are able to determine when that sloka was incorporated into M.Bh. Is it not, therefore, equally valid to conclude that the M.Bh. itself or at least the particular part was interpolated after the purana writers became familiar with the existence of Ceylon?
)).
