vajra (proto-nAgasvara?), and zaGkha

[Guest guest]

vayir = proto-nAgasvaram?

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For sometime, I have been thinking about

'vayir' - a type of musical instrument often

refered to in the earliest CT texts.

 

Obviously, 'vayir' in CT and sanskrit vajra are

related. Cf. vayiram = diamond (skt. vajra).

vayir is the instrument made of 'hard wood' in CT.

Are vayiriyar accompanying the dancer women in CT, later

evolved into the medieval musicians playing the pipe

of mangalavAdyam in Chola inscriptions?

 

Acc. to prof. Witzel, vajra is an Indo-Iranian

word:

INDOLOGY/message/904

 

The contact to relate tamil vayir and skt. vajra

must have been quite early. Is the direction

of transmission going from dravidian possible?

 

Obviously, Tevaram (7th century) and Tiruvacakam (9th century)

employ the word, Ezil which means "7-hole instrument",

and Tamil commentators say this refers to nAgasvaram.

Compare the tamil word nAyan2am for nAgasvaram,

and nAyana < skt. nayana 'eye', In tamil, nAyanam

and Ezil '7-hole instument' invite comparison.

Between flute and nAgasvaram, which is 'Ezil' is hard

to decide, OTOH flute has other names in old Tamil:

kuzal, vEyGkuzal, pullAGkuzal, puLLAGkuzal etc.

 

Norman Cutler for example translates Ezil in Tiruvacakam

as nAgasvaram. See the quote given by LS:

CTamil/message/392

 

Interested those can read the thread nagaswaram in CTamil .

Eg., I gave some ref.s to Tamil scholars claiming Ezil

as nAgasvaram,

CTamil/message/402

 

Next time, I will list the CT encounters of vayir

instruments, and their relationship to dance and music.

The presence of 'vayir' and 'Ezil' in sangam and bhakti era

texts in tamil make it difficult to believe the

mangalavAdyam par excellence in tamil temples

played with devadasi dance arrived from Arabia.

 

Tamil inscriptions, texts, and art has not been

studied in depth w.r.t the origins of oboe in south India.

Note that zurna/surna type names from Middle East

is not encountered in Tamil.

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan

 

zaGkha shells:

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kOTu is the conch shell (Cf. NaRRiNai uses 'veN kOTu' white

conch). Tamils use 'kOTTunURu' (kOTu + nURu) for 'conch line'.

kOTu and kavaTi/kavaLi mean 'curve, coil, horn' etc.,

kavaTi, (pronounced as kavaDi), is english cowrie shell.

Another semantically related word for conch is

koGku 'curve, hill' etc., in tamil.

Drav. koGku is the likely root for Skt. zaGkha.

INDOLOGY/message/1571

 

See Dr. Piotr Gasiorowski in the IE list on the

possibility of konkhos in Greek as an Eastern loan:

cybalist/message/9494

 

Ancient Sumerians imported the zaGkha shells from India:

cybalist/message/9634

 

The Greek konkhos/kokhlos may be ultimately related

to words like tamil koGku/kokku 'curve, coil, hill' etc.,

Another related word with the same root, "curving" is

for herons: tamil kokku, telugu koGga 'heron'.

 

Interestingly, in the Minoan palaces 4 quatrz-hard

rhytons have been found, and Near Eastern parallels

exist. Whether these ultimately are related to

Indian zaGkha, and its importance in Indian culture?

Two other relations between East and West:

a) The Pythagoras theorem has

been discovered in agnicayana ritual few

centuries earlier than Greek attestations, and

historians of Science are now sure that both

Greek and Vedic geometry have a common origin -

Most likely, the pre-Socratic philosophers heard

of it in Turkey region the Indian mathematics.

and b) The Gorgons, their tilaka-like marks,

the Perseus-Gorgon legend have an "oriental"

relation ultimately going to Indian sources.

(A. David Napier's books and 2001 paper). - NG