India and Indians

The first mistake I noted in his writings is the use of the words ‘India’, ‘Indians’ etc. When he wrote the words, there was no nation of India. So the mistake was not his.

There was only a subcontinent which was known to outsiders as ‘India’ in a most unclear manner. It was a name used, maybe, in maritime and other trade circles globally in the hoary past, to denote a location from where certain trade commodities came from. It is not known if anyone knew exactly as to where the boundaries are.

Beyond that whether anyone in the subcontinent in the ancient past were aware that they were in India, or that they were Indians, is also a very pertinent point for pondering.

It must be stressed that this erroneous use of the word ‘India’ and ‘Indians’ has been done by many others of those times. It is quite certain that the people and administrators in Great Britain did have an impression that they were ruling the whole of the subcontinent, even though the actual fact was that British-India consisted of less than half of the geographical area of the subcontinent.

Continental Europeans versus the English/British

This is another location where Thurston and all other non-native writers should have been more careful. First of all, the term British. It consists of two entirely different groups. One the English and the other Celtic language groups such as the Irish, Scots and the Welsh. Using the term ‘British’ for both the English as well as the Celtic groups do have the issue of not being accurate.

Next is the use of the term ‘European’. It is a most confusing usage. For again, Continental Europeans and the British are not one group. In many ways, culturally, socially and even in nationalistic ambitions, the two entities are not one and the same. In most ways, they are totally opposite to each other. The history of colonialism of the two sides is totally a mismatch in terms of everything, including what happened in the colonial areas.

Malayalam versus Malabari

There is one item that continues to intrigue me much. It is about the mention of the language of Malayalam. The very word Malabar used in some of the contemporary writings does have the problem in defining Malabar. Even though the word ‘Malabar’ was used from external locations to mean the south western coast of the subcontinent in a most vague manner, the fact was that there was and is a very specific geographical location called Malabar. It is located south of Canara and Tulu language locations. And north of Travancore and Cochin locations.

In Malabar, there was a traditional language which was not really Malayalam then, but quite different from it. In fact, I do feel that this language was not connected to either Tamil or Sanskrit antiquity. Then the question of who brought the language there might crop up.

Could it be a language brought in by the north Malabar (Marumakkathaya) Thiyyas? I have heard a contention that this group of people carry the bloodline from ancient Greece, currently in a much diluted form. I do not know what the basis of this contention is.

(South Malabar Thiyyas are another population. Maybe they are from central Asian bloodline.)

Another tell-tale identifying theme could be Kalari martial arts. But then, it is mentioned that this art form was a contribution of Parasurama to the first group of people he brought in as Brahmins. I find a contention in this book that these Brahmins were later made devoid of Brahminship.

However as of now, Brahmins are not mentioned as connected to Kalari.

As of now, the traditional groups mentioned as associated with Kalari is Nair. May be they acquired it from north Malabar Thiyyas, as they were the people with policing powers in the locations. Kalari has been taken up by Mappila (Malabar Muslim) groups also. What their antique connection with Kalari is, is not known to me.

It might be good to check if there is any verbal similarity between Malabari words and the lingua franca of in Greece or in Central Asian locations. Also, if the traditional Thiyya individual names, such as Cheeur, Chirutha, Pirukku, Chathu, Pokken, Kittu, Kanaran etc. have any links to the individual names of those places.

However, it must be admitted that several centuries of subjugation to the lowest of the feudal classes, that is the Nairs, would have erased much of their cultural antiquity. Whatever remains of their antiquity would be what is found in Theyyam and Thira rituals, connected to various traditional deities such as Muthappan etc.

I wrote this much just to mention one specific item. Malayalam language has, as of now, claimed and achieved a statutory Classical language status. Naturally, the pro-Malayalam lobby would have produced some evidences for this upgrading, which more or less lifts it to the level of Sanskrit.

Since I do not know what the evidences produced were, the question that comes up would be whether the Malayalam lobby could have used the actual antiquity of the Malabari language. And then, there is the question of the Malayalam script.

It is found mentioned in Travancore State Manual that Malayalam is a very recently developed language. It is parents were mentioned as Tamil and Sanskrit.

And there was a very specific mention that in Travancore (which is the actual location of Malayalam), there were more or less no Malayalam inscriptions of yore. What were available were mainly Tamil and Sanskrit ones.

In which case, it would be quite interesting to find out as to from where did Malayalam pick up its script. Picking up from other languages is more or less the norm, than the exception in this geographical location.

In this book which you are now reading, there are mentions of Tulu-Malayalam script. This is what ticks my curiosity. Tulu locations had no direct connection with the Malayalam locations, which were in Travancore. Tulu location was directly connected to Malabar and Malabari language location.

TOBIAS ZACHARIAS in his English-Malayalam Dictionary published in 1907, had mentioned about the Malayalee craving to download all Sanskrit words into Malayalam. In the same spirit, could it be that the Malayalam script is also a day-light heist from Malabari language?

I have no passionate aims in supporting Malabari language also. For, it is another terribly feudal language. My aim is simply to speak about the various possibilities. However, it is quite possible that the language experts in Malayalam do have enough information about what really took place and how Malayalam developed. My contentions are simply from an un-studied location. And need not be taken too seriously. I have no interest in this issue, whichever way it turns out.

Hindu and Hinduism

Third item is the careless use of the term ‘Hindu’. It is amply clear from the information given in this book itself that the term ‘Hindu’ could be attached to only the Brahmanical classes and their appendages. In the case of some of the Brahmin classes, their claims might even be flimsy.

The subcontinent was full of people who were not connected to the Hindu spiritual antiquity at all. There are mentions of competing or unconnected spiritual phenomena or worship, in this book. Thurston and even Samuel Mateer do mention something they define as Devil worship.

I must admit that I do feel that most of these English/British writer of contemporary times did miss out a on a lot of information on this so-called Devil worship phenomena. I do feel that when viewed from the perspective of this spiritual phenomena, Thurston and others have really missed a lot. This in itself can give some further insight of the certain limitations and undue influence that bore upon the writings of Thurston.

However, I cannot make categorical statements about this, for I have not read the subsequent parts of this book. Yet, there is a lingering feeling in me that what has been described and defined as Devil worship might be the Shamanistic spiritual worship and associated rituals which existed in the southern parts of the subcontinent as a very powerful undercurrent in the social systems, among the lower classes and castes.

It is true that in the current days of insane democratic claims upon anything and everything, the word ‘Hindu’ has to be forcefully inserted upon every population groups who do not belong to Christian or Islamic fraternity.

Shamanistic spirituality

There is a very popular spiritual phenomenon in the northern parts of Malabar. That is, at the northern areas of the state of Kerala in India. I find it quite curious that Thurston has not made any mention of this spiritual phenomenon.

Even though in current-day times, the rituals are being connected to popular Hinduism, it is more or less plausible that it is part of a different spiritual system.

This would take the subject matter directly to the Marumakkathaya (matriarchal) Thiyya caste of north Malabar. It is seen in this book itself (Part 1), that there are two different manners in which the some references are made about the Thiyyas. And again, in Part VII of this book, a totally different slant has been given to the way this caste has been defined and described.

This totally leads me to think about the various sources that gave the information for the writing of this book. It is almost certain that Thurston did depend upon a number of local natives of the region for the various information.

From my own understanding about the local people and their mental attitude, it is almost quite certain that all such information would be doctored or watered down or selectively amplified to suit the various social, caste, job &c. prejudices and claims.

This book is a highly revealing document of the complexities of the social structure of the subcontinent, which consisted of a huge number of mutually competing, mutually repulsive and mutually antagonistic populations. On the higher layers, the only similar attitude was a claim by very many of them to be of brahmanic origin or connection.

At the same time, there was also the equally powerful attitude to disclaim the claims of other groups. There are enough and more instances, wherein it is seen that various castes or groups of people or even individuals jump into a higher caste. The basic aim of these endeavours was to disentangle oneself from the various entanglements and strangleholds that a lower caste address would shower on him or her, and on his or her family.

The arrival of the English rule in around half of the locations in the subcontinent did create various kinds of opportunities to many individuals to indulge in many kinds of social manipulations.

One of the very apparent social manipulations was to result in the setting up of an Ezhava temple in Tellichery and in making the Thiyyas there to feel that it is their place of worship. This manipulation could have been facilitated by the actions of traditional Thiyya leadership, who faced the terror of newer generation Thiyyas slipping into the English social ambience. It is possible that certain person from Ezhava ancestry, who gained governmental positions in Mysore state in the British administration, must have colluded with some of the Thiyya officials in higher government official positions.

The above-mentioned possibility is being mentioned without any evidence with me, other than a gut-feeling that this is what happened.

But then what makes the whole issue quite suspicious is that there might not be any mention of these things in this book of Thurston in any of the 7 parts.

When looking at the Thiyya issue, there are three different versions given in his book. The first one is the argument that mentions that the Thiyyas are from Ceylon. The word Thiyya is a corruption of the word Theevar (people from the island). This is mentioned to claim that Thiyyas and Ezhavas are one and the same. For Ezhavas are mentioned to be from Eezham (Ceylon).

The other mention which would not be given by a person who wrote the above is a mention that Dikshitar Brahmin ‘in appearance somewhat resemble the Nayars or Tiyans of Malabar’. Here the unmentioned hint is that Nairs and Thiyyas look similar. This is an attitude partial to the Thiyyas, in that there is a suggestion that they resemble the caste just above them.

However, this is not a hint which might be acceptable to the Nairs of Malabar. They would feel that they are degraded by being mentioned as similar to a lower caste.

In another location, (Part VII) of this book, there is a very detailed argument that Thiyyas of north Malabar do not like to be identified as Ezhavas. In fact, they vehemently oppose all such suggestions.

In the same location, there is another complication. It is that the Thiyyas of North Malabar do not find the Thiyyas of South Malabar as socially acceptable group. South Malabar Thiyyas are Makkathaya (patriarchal) caste. Ezhavas are also Makkathaya.

From certain more such mutually contradictory detailing, I do get a feeling that at least some of the detailed writings on at least some of the castes have been written by some other persons. Thurston must have studied them, and inserted them into the book, after editing them.

Seen from this perspective, the various detailing of the various castes are merely sort of official records, in themselves, or information derived from them. There need not be much of an originality in the contents.

Thurston himself has mentioned the help in this regard which he had got from various natives of the subcontinent. In many locations, he had merely quoted from the books of others. Many of them are non-native writers, presumably English/British.

These writers also would be facing the same problem in understanding the social inhibitions, strictures, social licences &c. which are all actually embedded in another all-enwrapping item. This item is the local languages. About this I will have to mention something more in detail. I will do that after some time.

The problem with making use of the writings and other contributions of the local natives is that there is enough and more possibility of them being coloured by their own social and caste compulsions, which in turn would be under pressure from the language codes.

What Thurston missed

Even though the works of Thurston might be pioneering and quite profound, I must mention that he did not understand what he saw and observed. That he has seen much, observed much and postulated much on them is quite candidly clear. However, there was something that he did not note down, even though, he must have felt its presence everywhere.

In fact, there is a lot of hints and mention of the factor ‘respect’ in the book, more or less in a ubiquitous manner. But he did not understand what this meant. That is where this book fails. However, once the reader is told of what this is, the book again comes back as a solid record that substantiates many things, which had remained unmentioned.

It is curious that even though there have been many profound studies on the various aspects of the South Asian subcontinent region, and about the British-India nation, everyone sort of acted blind to a very powerful enwrapping item, which more or less influenced everything in the location.

This item which remained a sort very open and concealed was the nature of the native languages, and the word-codes therein.

The languages of the subcontinent can cursorily be mentioned as ‘feudal languages’. Even though this is not a very comprehensive manner to define the character of the languages therein, it is apt in the sense that pristine-English can be defined as a planar-language.

It is a very vividly clear insight that these feudal languages do have a very degrading or ennobling kind of hierarchy of words that automatically define a person and his associates as dirt or gold.

The real effect of this word-coding cannot be explained away in a cursory manner. It is that these words and their connected usages have a very powerful exertive force on the individual. They have force of impact, and also of that of pushing down or pulling up. In fact, these word-codes can act as hammers, chisels, nails, wedges, twisting force, shearing force, and also give a see-saw kind of effect.

Since these things have been explained by me in many of my other writings, I need not go into a deeper elaboration here. If the reader is interested, he or she can read the text: An impressionistic history of the South Asian subcontinent, on this web.

Hammering force of feudal language word-codes

Now, from this location, I can say that almost all the social effects mentioned by Thurston can be explained or elaborated by the code-contents in the native feudal languages.

From this point, I can very easily move on to the pet subject for which Thurston has been famous for. That is, his attempts at identifying human population differences as seen in the skull shapes and the measurements of certain distances on them. The so-called Craniology.

I have not made a profound attempt at understanding his contentions or what he was trying to find, or to explain. However, based on my own research work on language codes, I think that he was sort of barking at the wrong tree.

Human looks and various other mental and social features are actually encoded in the native language of the person, in powerful connection to the language of the social system in which he or she was embedded.

However, in the South Asian subcontinent, this idea has to be further understood in connection to the feudal content in the language codes.

So that each layer of population or caste would have a specific anthropological demeanour and design connected to the location in the language codes, they have been placed in. This placement is directly related to the position of that specific caste in the caste hierarchy.

Beyond that, at a personal level, the language codes would also act powerfully on his or her own stature and status within his or her own caste or family or companionship circle or profession.

So, whatever notes and observations that Thurston made on the various caste individuals, is actually a reflection of the design work done by the language codes on that human individual.

It is indeed quite strange that in spite of Thurston being so much talented and skilled in making so many sociological observations, he was unable to detect the factor of language codes influencing human features.

The degradation set upon native-English nations

In fact, feudal languages can literally redesign the social set-up quite powerfully. The terrible social degradation that has currently come upon pristine-English nations has been due to the huge influx of feudal language speakers in those societies. Every human relationship will be changed for the worse in pristine-English nations when the social set-up is very powerfully redesigned by feudal languages.

Beyond that it can very categorically be mentioned that if a few native-English individuals were to work at lower-grade jobs (as defined in feudal languages) under a group of feudal language speakers, for a few generations, then their anthropological features will slowly change to that seen in the lower castes in the south Asian subcontinent. Beyond that there will be sharp changes in the personality features, mental acumen, mental balance, efficiency etc. in the down-placed individuals.

If the down-placed native-English speakers were to have oscillate between their own native language social ambience and that of feudal languages, they will start exhibiting mental problems which might be defined by psychologists and psychiatrists (both of whom know practically nothing about mind and mind mechanism) as mental problem or mental disease.

Quite curiously, Thurston himself has made an observation in this regard. See this quote from CASTES AND TRIBES OF SOUTHERN INDIA Volume 2:

QUOTE: Writing concerning the prevalence of insanity in different classes, the Census Commissioner, 1891, states that “it appears from the statistics that insanity is far more prevalent among the Eurasians than among any other class..........’.

The subject seems to be one worthy of further study by those competent to deal with it. END OF QUOTE

Eurasians were generally the people who had mixed parentage in those days. Mainly Englishmen as father and native-women as mother. These people were blessed with all kinds of social superiority and great mental standards if they were in a native-English family ambience. If they were totally in a native-feudal language ambience also, there was not much of a problem. However, if they were living in a mix of both, wherein in the feudal language ambience, they were at the butt end of the suppressive word codes, then the chance for them showing mental problems was quite high.

This is a theme that has to be dealt with quite profoundly. Starting from the peripheral location of feudal language word-codes versus planar English word-codes, it has to move deep into the location of software codes of brain-software, human body and also that of physical reality. It is so a mixed-up domain, which would encompass knowledge of software codes, language codes, codes of reality, human anatomy, mental process, thought process etc.

As of now, there is no such intellectual field of study that can come near to this domain. As to medical and psychiatrist being capable of taking up this question, well, most of them do not know anything about the totally non-physical state of reality that exists with the world of software codes.