Whisper,
I am not saying that "all" South Indian Brahmins had at one point of time migrated from the north. All I am saying is that there is an element of migration involved, both ways, and in this process a motley population consisting of various hues of people have become Brahmins. I too feel that the Aryan Migration Theory is overwhelmingly flawed. Have you interacted with the mongoloid brahmins of Assam or Nepal? How can you explain their existence as per the Aryan Migration Theory unless you accept that the locals (again, some of them had migrated from Manchuria) had taken to Brahminism to varying degrees and with their own variations? I am also uncomfortable with the idea that Brahmins are "somehow racially superior", and are different in some genetic way from the rest of the population. Brahminism is more a way of life, did and does have a clear social purpose (the "sacred power" theory offers a convincing explanation to this), and in certain ways has a personally utility to the people who follow it.
But that is not to say that there have not been migrations of people across the country, and sometimes to other countries. Three thousand years back, Indians were travelling upto the Silk Route, and then along it, to the Balkans and beyond. Shiva temple ruins were found near the extremities of Balkans close to Russia. Around A.D. 100, the Kingdom of Funan in Combodia was esatablished by the legendary South Indian Brahmin, "Kambu" (=hence Combodia). He was followed by a series of Vaishnavite South Indian Brahmin rulers, including Chandana, and this culture finally culminated around 1200 A.D. in the magnificient Angkor Vat. Take the case of Sankethi Brahmins of Karnataka. These do hard agricultural labour, are vegetarian, nearly 100% Sanskrit literate (= populate the only Sanskrit speaking village in the world in the Hassan District of Karnataka), academically brilliant, have a significant population in the U.S., and speak corrupted Tamil (in the heartland Karnataka). Their oral and written history says that they were Aiyars from Sangkottai (=hence the name, "Sankethi") in Tamilnadu who had moved via north-Kerala and Coorg to the central Karnataka due to drought (they have their own mythology to explain how this drought occurred). The recorded history of Saraswat Brahmins of Goa says that they had migrated from Kashmir when the post-12th Century Muslim kings started slaughtering them enmasse. To this day, the only Brahmins who follow the Saraswat way are the Kashmiri Pandits and the Goan Saraswats (Lata Mangeshkar & Sunil Gavaskar included). It is a different matter that in Goa too, they got murdered, maimed, mutilated, and coverted to Christianity during the Catholic Inquisition of Goa started by "Saint" Francis Xavier. How do you explain these movements if you assume that there had been no migration of Brahmins at all?
I recognize your strong attachment to the Tamil language, and I respect that sentiment. But that does not rule out the possibility that an ancestor of ours might have spoken a different language and lived in a different province / country. Annamacharya, who wrote beautiful, and till date unmatched verses about Lord Venkateshwara in purest Telugu, belonged to a family that migrated four generations before him from the north as per the recorded history of his family. It was also very common for South Indian Brahmins (irrespective of their origins) to visit Kashi and also the present day Bengal for educational purposes. Travel, study, debate, and exchange of ideas and literature, and also the sentiment of pan-Brahminism seem to be of much more common occurence amongst the Brahmins of ancient and medieval India. As for the varying origins of Telugu Brahmins (Niyogis, Vaidikis, Dravidas, Konaseemas, Madhvaites, Vishnavaites, and even Telugu Aiyars & Aiyangars), I can actually give you historical and documentary sources (Ahobila Matham keeps some of them), which you can study and decide for yourself. Actually, tracing the roots of south Indian Brahmins (or for that matter any other community) is such an extensive topic, that it is beyond the scope of this discussion to go into it. It would suffice to say that there are close to a hundred different sects and communities in Andhra Brahmins, each owing allegiance to certain sacred texts, following a set of customs slightly different from others, and origins of each of these are very interesting. Prior to the 1950s, these never even used to intermarry. Intermarriage has only now become acceptable due to isolated populations, and lack of qualified grooms within.
Anbu,
I request you to kindly go through the following, the text of which is available online.
The Sacred Laws of the Âryas
AS TAUGHT IN THE SCHOOL OF
ÂPASTAMBA
(Apastamba Dharma Sutra)
Translated by Georg Bühler
Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 2
Oxford: The Clarendon Press
[1879]
You would find that the themes of duties of the King, how to run the administration, duties of the Brahmin etc., are basic to Aapasthamba Smrithi too, just as they were basic to Manu Smrithi. As for the differences between the A.S. & the M.S., and why they arose, this has been a topic of research, and has been well explained interms of changing requirements of times by the scholars. May be for the changing times of Tamilnadu, we need an "Anbu Smrithi". How about it?
I feel that it is unwarranted to ridicule a largely benevolent way of life such as Brahminism, on the grounds that it came from south, east, west or north.
