Origins of Tamils?[Where are Tamil people from?] PART :79

 [Compiled by: Kandiah Thillaivinayagalingam]

There is ample evidence that the trade of South India other than Persian Gulf Arab states,extended not only to the Mesopotamian valley,but also to Egypt in the third millennium B.C.The Arabs,who played the intermediaries,carried muslins and Indian spices from South Indian "parathavar," [the Dravidian origins,ancient inhabitants of the coastal areas] who took those articles in their boats to Aden and the East African Coast,and carried them,in turn,to Thebes or Memphis,by sea or land.In the Book of Genesis[37:25] there is mention of a company of traders with spicery and myrrh going to Egypt as:"As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt".Also,in the abundant booty,loading the vessel of the Pharaoh for conveyance to the land of Egypt,appeared many South Indian animals and products not indigenous to Egypt-elephant’s teeth[tusk],precious stones,sandalwood and monkeys.Further,the presence of indigo,tamarind-wood and other Indian products have been detected in the tombs of Egypt;and,it is also said that the Egyptians dyed cloth with indigo and wrapped their mummies in South Indian muslin.But,the Egyptians were poor sailors,and South Indian articles found their way to Egypt through Arab and Phoenician ships.The presence of the African Baobab in the Tinnevelly District has been traced to early traders from Africa.In the Inscriptions of Harkhuf under the Egyptian King, Memere,of the sixth Dynasty,2,600 B.C.,there are references to several South Indian articles that found their way to Egypt:incense,

ebony,grain,ivory,panthers,etc.The ebony referred to,doubtless,was South Indian ebony,which was,according to Theophrastus,"peculiar only to India." In the sixth Dynasty,under Pepi II,in the twenty sixth century B.C.,references were made to South Indian cotton cloth, by an Egyptian Royal officer,Sebni.Besides,ivory was in great demand in Egypt:and considering the fact that it was easier to kill elephants in Indian forests, than in African forests,Indian ivory alone could have been largely imported to Egypt.Further,it was asserted that the Egyptian Kings used axes and swords and other iron implements,manufactured only in South India in those early times.In exchange for these articles,Egypt sent to South India incense,sweet-smelling gums,etc.South Indian traders must have sent their ships to sea and sailed to distant lands for sale and barter, long before North Indians took to maritime commerce.In the second millennium B.C.,when the old land-route was destroyed, the tide of trade bent southward and led to a great development in the sea trade of South India.Under the seventeenth Egyptian dynasty (1580-1530 B.C.),there were several records of the receipt of ivory in trade and as tribute,which fact indicates that in the early times,ivory and ivory-articles,like chairs, tables,statues and whips,went from the west coast of India to the Nile Valley.Under the

eighteenth Dynasty,great Egyptain ships fetched, from the Arab intermediaries,South Indian ebony,precious

stones,ivory,gold,cinnamon,incense,apes,monkeys,dogs and panther skins.In the days of the twentieth Dynasty,under Rameses III (1198-1167 B.C.),Egypt continued to get ebony and precious stones from South India.During the hey-day of Egytian prosperity,under the twenty-eighth Dynasty,the garments of royal linen used in Egypt were considered to be of South Indian muslin.The cinnamon,which Egypt largely imported,was not an article of Punt,as it was believed,but it grew in Malabar and Cochin;and South India traded in it with the Arab intermediaries,who sold it in their turn to Egypt.Among the eastern treasures,mentioned as supplied from Punt to Egypt,were grain and gingelly oil,which, according to the ‘Periplus,’ were largely exported to far off countries only from South India.The Egyptian priests underwent the "anointment" ceremony. with the "South Indian gingelly oil," and the Egytian Queen Hatshepsust got her excellent ebony only from the Malabar coast and not from Punt,as she believed!" So, trade between South India and Egypt flourished from very early times to the second millennium B.C.

                                                     

Indian contact with Egypt in historical times is abundantly documented in the Periplus of the Erythraen Sea, as translated by W.H Schoff .The Periplus describes in remarkable detail the antiquity of Indian trade,not only with parts and people of makran coast,the Persian Gulf,Red Sea Greece and Rome,but on the coast of Eastern Africa.Also,one of the generals of Alexander the Great was travelled through these coasts and recorded the presence of foreign traders in those regions.and further strengthens our assumptions.It is interesting to note that when Vasco da Gama (1460-1524)]reached Mombasa[Kenya] he found Indians already settled there and it was an Indian pilot who took him to Goa.The contributions made by the Dravidian immigrants in evolving the New Sudanic Civilization is rightly acknowledged by great historians like Baumann.

Tamils are Black people.And while they may not consider themselves Africans they believe that Africans and Tamils come from the same place--a now submerged continent that once connected South Asia with East Africa.......Runoko Rashidi

The Tamils are an important branch of the Dravidians.So who are the

Dravidians? The Dravidians are among the earliest,perhaps the first, people to inhabit India.The early Greeks and Romans referred to them as Eastern Ethiopians.The term "Ethiopian" is a Greek work and means "people with faces burnt by the sun."There were Eastern Ethiopians and Western Ethiopians.The Eastern Ethiopians were in Asia and the Western Ethiopians were in Africa.They were both Black people with the only real distinction being the texture of the hair.The Eastern Ethiopians had straight to wavy hair and the Western Ethiopians had tightly curled or kinky[Tightly twisted or curled] hair.The Eastern Ethiopians lived in ancient Iraq,Iran, Afghanistan,Pakistan,India,and probably other parts of South Asia.

The Venetian traveler Marco Polo [1254 -  1324 AD) visited Tamil Nadu twice during the thirteenth century and commented on how the Tamils viewed with great pride their black skin-complexions.He actually said that their young were anointed with oil of sesame which made them even darker and that,"Here the darkest man is better than the others who are not so dark," that they portray their gods and saints black and the devil as white as snow." You can find this passage in Marco Polo's Travels.The Adi Dravidas (true Dravidians) of South India are black like the Africans with a slightly different hair texture.

PART :80 WILL FOLLOW