Of late, politics has coloured the Aryan-Dravida aspect of Indian History. In Purely cultural terms ,Vedic scholars question the validity of the Divide, while academic specialists reaffirm it. The two views are presented here.

A composite Society

Those who examine the cutural history of India invariably come across the so-called North-South divide. There seems to be a view prevailing among the educated and sophisticated Indians of the generation and the previous that the north of the Vindhya ranges differs characteristically from the south in many particulars like ethnic stock, linguistic group , social structure and cultural orientations.Whatever the veracity of this view,it is certain that it was fuelled by the early historians and archaeologists (both Indian and others) who projected the idea of Aryan immigration into the North resulting in the pushing of the indigenous Dravidians into the south. These enthusiasts of division pointed out that the Vedas were Aryan in origin while , according to them, the Indus civilization (at the dawn of recorded history) was Dravidan in content. Recent researches have given a lie to both these contentions. But the mischief has already been afoot, and there is a secret suspicion lurking in the minds of those who have gone to schools and colleges that the North is Aryan while the South is Dravidian.

Deepening this suspicion is the scholarly , but incorrect, classification of languages spoken in India. It is usual to group the Indian languages (more than 760 dialects) in three categories:

1) Indo Aryan ( Punjabi-Hindi and its variants, Bengali , Gujarati , Marathi and Oriya).

2) Dravidians: (Tamil, Telugu,Kannada,Malayalam and Tulu) and

3) Austro -Asiatic: (Mundari, Oraon, santali etc.,)This grouping suggests that races can be correlated with languages that every language-group has an ethnic identity.This is a fallacy that has spread among the people, who do not realise that the nomenclature for these groups was altogether arbitrary, and not based on reason on evidence.

Add to it the notion, equally wide spread , that sanskrit has a greater relevance and appeal to the population in the North than to those in the South.While it is true that languages in the South, especially Tamil which is as old as Sanskrit, are to a considerable extent free from the direct impact of sanskrit. The languages in the North cannot be said to have directly evolved from Sanskrit.It should be remembered that sanskrit, as its very name indicates, was artificially instituted as a refined, perfect, competent and universally acceptable version of several Prakritis and that dialects.In other words, the Prakriti languages geographically distributed were all there long before Sanskrit made its appearance.It may be of interest to know that the first known epigraph in Sanskrit was found in Girnar ; it is dated 150 A.D. it relates that the saka-ruler. Rudra-Daman( a foreigner) rebuilt a dam that had been built earlier by Chandraguptha Maurya. This Rudradaman boasts of his intimate acquaintance with Sanskrit.This epigraph is significant because all inscriptions in the North till the 4th century A.D were in simple Prakriti, and not in Sanskrit.It may also be remembered that the indigenous Satavahana monarchs preferred dialectic Prakrit for their inscription in the Buddhist caves at Nasik, where we find Sanskrit inscriptions only by the donors of foreign descent. It is an eloquent commentaries on the role of Sanskrit. It is the same on both sides of the Vindhya ranges.If in the field of Sanskrit literature Kalidasa is the pride of the North,Bhasa appeared in the south before him.

Recent, researches have shown that the Vedas were not the confabulation of the so called Aryan immigrants: nor was the Indus civilization characteristically Dravidian (again so called).the Rigvedic society was a composite one;Many are the hymns that speak of the cultural plurality of the population; Even the priests belonged to various ethnic groups and it was by no means a simple pastoral society, as early scholars imagined. It would be inaccurate to regard the Vedas as representing dawn of India's history, cultural or social. The Vedic hymns clearly point out that the society even then was highly evolved; There were urban bourgeoisie and landed aristocracy, industry and trade and commerce had developed; crafts and provisions where there aplenty. There were also the beginnings of commercial intercourse between this country and the Pacific world.

The Indus civilization infact came later than the composition of the Vedic corpus. It sugeests the continuity of trade and commerce and crafts and professions from the Vedic times and contact with the Mediterrainian people. It is a fact that extensive Indus archeology has failed to come up with event historical, liguistic or social information. The description of this civilisation as Dravidian is as fallacious as the description of the vedic corpus as Aryan.The two words, Aryan and Dravidian, do not infact, mean anything in terms of ethnic groups. the theory of the Vedic aryans pushing the Indus dravidians down to the South is pure myth. As a matter of fact, the pre historic tribes of our country are even now mostly concentrated on the broad belt of central India (Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, bihar and bengal) and distributed in Assam and the remoter Himalayas , that is to say , mostly North India; Deccan and south India have but a few pockets of them.Had there been a major invasion and cataclysmic population migration , this would have not happened .

It is also significant that the country was not known by anyone name during the vedic period and for centuries there after.There was , however, the conception of one nation (Rashtra), as for instance in RV 10 ,125,3,and the prayers in the Vedic hymns were always for collective welfare (1,79,4;2,24,15;3,1,22;4,87,7;5,23,2 etc.,) even in the puranic age , the country was known not by one name but by differet name; Jambu- dvipa ,Bharata- Varsha , Manava -dvipa , kumari -dvipa and so on.And the description of the country here includes countries of greater India like Indra-dvipa (Sumathra) , kase-ruman (Malaya) , Tamraparani (Srilanka) , Nagna-dvipa (Nikobar Islands) Purna - dvipa (Borneo) , Brigu (Cham) , and so on. They were all obviously in groups.

When such was the case . it is not surprising that no where in the early literature of India do we find any reference to the North-South divide. the nearest expressions that we find in some smritis texts and in the epics are Arya vartha and Dhakshina patha ; But, then they refer only to limited stretches of land in the North and South . There is no doubt about several ethnic groups inhabiting this country , but they are all under the powerful spell of unifying acculturation. Even outsiders like Persians, Greeks, Sakas, Kushnas, and Hunas (During the 1000 years , between 500 B.C and 500 A.D) were thoroughly and indistinguishably Indiansied.

If these groups made the North their home, Syrian Christians who arrived in India to escape from Roman persecution found shelter in Travancore; The nucleus of the first Indian christian community was thus in South India. The Buddhists in the middle ages flourished only in the South , especially in Kancheepuram, Banavasi and Nagapattinam.

The greatest among Indian thinkers , Nagarjuna ( the leader of the Mahayana movement ) , Sankara, Dharmakirti , Bodhi Dharma ( The patron - saint of zen ) , Ramanuja , Vallabha and Madhva,were from the south; but they were readilly and whole heartely accepted in the North. Sri Krishna Chaintanya came from Bengal to Udupi in Karnataka for religious initiation .

Infact, the Bakthi movement in the country is said to have originated in the South; Bhagavata is an invaluable contribution of the south. Vedanta philosophy has crystalized in the south .Kulluka - bhatta , the commentator on Manu's Dharmasastra mentions that there are two great traditions in the country; Vedic and Tantrik. If the Vedic tradition is associated with the north , the tantrik tradition is clearly from the south . But in Hinduism as it developed, the two traditions were inextricably interwoven; the strands can hardly be distinguished.And in Buddhism the enormous tantrik influence can be seen even today in Vajrayana(practice in Tibet, Mongolia, China and Japan) . It is to be noted that the source scripture of Vajrayana , Manjusri-mula-kalpa, was prepared in Kerala.

Mention must also be made of the Tamil Siddhas,whose oral tradition(vay-moti)made a powerful impact on the religious practises,mystical ideology and literary styles of the classical siddhas of the North(Nathas,Sahagiyas,Vajrayanis and Kanphatas).The contribution of the Tamil Siddhas,especially Tirumular and Sivavakiyar,to Indian alchemy is immense.

In the field of Indian Medicine,the first of the tamil Siddhas,Agasthiyar,has prepared an entire encyclopedia of theory and practise.It is unfortunate that this treasure,which is all in tamil,as not been made available for the world as yet.It will enrich and augment the tradition of Ayurveda as handed down by Charaka and Sushruta,with which the World is acquainted.

Historians tell us that the Vedic corpus was compiled in one corner of the sub continent.Archeologists tell as that the Indus Civilisation also appeared in the same corner.But what they do not tell us is that the corner was a miniature sub continent.Every tiny part of the country is in itself the entire country.If "That" is full,"This"is also full.Being full is not a mere summation of parts;fulness is there in each part.Otherwise it is but an assorted collection,and not a unity.