Statues of Agastya in Indonesia

Research Article written by London Swaminathan

Date:26 July 2016

Post No. 3008

Time uploaded in London :–  21-30

( Thanks for the Pictures)

DON’T REBLOG IT AT LEAST FOR A WEEK!  DON’T USE THE PICTURES; THEY ARE COPYRIGHTED BY SOMEONE.

(for old articles go to tamilandvedas.com OR swamiindology.blogspot.com)

Statue of Agastya in Nepal

There is a beautiful verse in Tamil:

If there is no literature, no grammar;

If there is no sesame seed, there is no oil;

Like we extract oil from the seeds

We get grammar from literature

–Peragathyam (Big+Agastyam)

All of us are familiar with the chicken and egg question which came first? Chicken or Egg?

We are familiar with the question whether man came first or woman came first?

We have an answer at least for this question.

Adam came first and he made Eve out of his left rib. This story was copied from the Hindu scriptures. Atma became Adam and Jiivatmaa became Eve (atma) in the Old Testament (I have already dealt with it in my post “Sanskrit in the Bible”).

Hindus say that Parvati was the left side of Shiva and that form is known as Ardha Naareeswar (Half Shiva and Half Parvati/Uma). This is also basis for the ‘left rib’ story of Adam. Left always denotes woman in Hindu literature.

There is another story about Brahma falling in love with his own daughter. Stupid foreigners dubbed this as “Incest” without understanding the symbolism. This is again the basis for the Adam and Eve story. Adam fell in love with his own daughter created out of his left rib. This is copied again from the Brahma’s ‘incest’ story.

Going back to the original topic, which came first, Grammar or Literature? Tamils are very clear about it: Literature came first and then Grammar was done on the basis of existing literature. Later writers followed that grammar. After 1000 years they dropped some rules and invented new rules as we see in Tamil and Sanskrit.

Statue of Agastya in London V and A Museum

Both the languages were created by Lord Shiva from the same root (Sounds from his kettle drum). Foreigners who wanted to divide India invented two families –Aryan family and Dravidian family of languages which is wrong. Both the languages belong to the same family. Thousands of Tamil words are in English which has a known relationship with Sanskrit. This is possible because Tamil and Sanskrit belonged to the same family ( I have dealt with it in my previous research paper)

Great Grammar Wonder!

Agastya, a saint who lived in the Himalayas was sent by Lord Shiva to the South to codify a grammar for the Tamil language. We have inscriptional, archaeological and literary proof in Tamil epigraphs, Agastya Statues in South East Asia and literary evidence in Kalidasa and Tamil literature in support of this belief.

If we go by the Tamil verse that literature came first, we accept that there was literature in Tamil even before Agastya was sent to the South. The scholars believe that this happened between 700 BCE and 1000 BCE. Unfortunately, Tamils lost their books and their literature and the existing ones start only from first century BCE. One grammarian known as Tolkappiar , believed to be a disciple of Agastya wrote the grammar for Tamil – Tolkappiam which is used until today. But original Agastya couldn’t have been his Guru. Tolkappiam betrays a later age. One thing is certain that Tamils had literature before Agastya came. Tolkappiar had 12 contemporary grammarians including Agastya.

Sanskrit wonder!

If we apply the Tamil verse that literature came before grammar, we can see a big wonder. Panini was the oddest grammarian in the world. But he himself referred to ten other great grammarians. We did not have those grammars. If we accept the date of Panini as seventh century BCE. We must accept lot of books existed at that time; unfortunately, we did not have any work except the Vedic literature. The oldest book in the world — the Rig Veda– is dated between 1400 BCE and 6000 BCE. Even if we accept 1400 BCE, then another wonder awaits us. There are grammatical terms in Vedic literature which shows that there was a grammar. It was referred to in a religious book! This again means another thing that literature existed even before the Vedas.

Remember: Before Grammar was literature!

Another coincidence is that some of the names mentioned by Panini are found in the Vedic literature too. But we don’t know whether they are just saints with the same names or saints cum grammarians.

Pre- Paninian grammarians include Apisali, Kasyapa, Gargya, Galava, Cakravarmana, Bharadvaja, Sakatayana, Sakalya, Senaka and Sphotayana.

Yaska of 8^th century BCE refers to the works of Saakataayana, Kraustuki, Gragya and several others.

Another wonder is that it shows that Hindus were far more advanced than any other civilization in the world 3500 years ago. Language (Sanskrit), Literature (Vedas), Linguistics (Yaska’s Nirukta) and Grammar (Panini) are the yard sticks of a civilisation. In the above four fields no language of today or ancient days comes closer to Sanskrit. Moreover this is the status after losing hundreds of Shakas (branches ) of the Vedas and thousands of books.

Long Live Tamil and Sanskrit.