OF BHABATAVARSA OR INDIA. 
57 
medial consonants is not at all unusual in the Indian vernacu- 
lars, Bestdramu, Thursday, in Telugu, e.g., for Brhaspativara, 
jannidamu for yajnopavita, dnati for ajnapti. 
The importance I attach to the derivation of Dravidian 
from Tirumala in the specified sense can be duly appre- 
ciated only when one considers that it establishes at once the 
prominent position the Malas (Mallas) or Dravidians occupied 
in the whole of India. It may perhaps be interesting to quote 
from the eloquent preface of Hodgson on the Kocch, Bodo, 
and Dhimal Tribes the following sentences, in which the term 
Tamulian is employed as equivalent to Dravidian. " The 
" Tamulian race, confined to India and never distinguished 
" by mental culture, offers, it must be confessed, a far less 
*' gorgeous subject for inquiry than the Arian. But, as the 
*' moral and physical condition of many of these scattered 
" members of the Tamulian body is still nearly as little 
" known as is the assumed pristine entirety and unity 
" of that body, it is clear that this subject had tvpo parts, 
" each of which may be easily shown to be of high 
" interest, not merely to the philosopher but to the states- 
" man. The Tamulians are now, for the most 'part, British 
" subjects : they are counted by millions, extending from 
" the snows to the Cape (Oomorin) ; and, lastly, they are as 
" much superior to the Arian Hindus in freedom from dis- 
" qualifying prejudices as they are inferior to them in know- 
" ledge and all its train of appliances. Let then the student 
*' of the progress of society, of the fate and fortunes of the 
" human race, instead of poring over a mere sketch of the past, 
regarded Tamil to be a deficient language. Bishop Caldwell has treated at 
some length on this subject in his Introduction, pp. 18-20. 
The initial consonant is often dropped in Dravidian languages, e.g., in 
Tamil Avai, assembly, for cavai; alliyam, village of herdsmen, for valliyam ; 
alai, rat hole, for valai and palai ; amar, war, from Sanskrit samara ; alam, 
plough, from Sanskrit hala ; ita, agreeable, from Sanskrit hita ; in Telugu 
esa, haste, for vesa ; Ma, white, for vella ; eyuta, to throw, for veyuta ; enu, 
I, for nhm ; tvu, thou, iox nivu ; emu, we, for m^mu, &c., &c. 
