Purusa Suktam as Archaic Tamil Part 2

Dear friends,

We shall continue in our efforts to show that the language of  Purusa Suktam may actually be   a variant of Sumero Tamil which is now gradually being accepted as Archaic Tamil and that the great Sumerians  are in fact ancient Tamils.

 In our earlier studies in connection with this project, we have shown that Santhi Mantra that accompanies many Vedic recitals is in fact Archaic Tamil as almost every word and every grammatical element  there have parallels in Sumerian . Now we shall take up Purusha Suktam proper verse by verse.

The first first verse as follows
 

1.

Om/ Sahasra-sirsa purusah/ sahasraaksah sahasrapaat/ sa bhuumin visvato urtvaa/ atyatisthad dasaangulam//

µõ º†ŠÃ-º£÷º ÒÕ„:/ º†ŠÃ¡ìº: º†ŠÃÀ¡ò/ º¡ âÁ¢ý Ŋŧ¾¡ °÷òÅ¡/  «¾¢ÂŠ¾¢¾ð ¾º¡íÌÄõ//

The Purusa (or the Primeval Being) has a thousand heads, a thousand eyes and a thousand feet. He has enveloped this world from all sides and has (even) transcended it by ten angulas or inches.

We have already dealt with 'Om' which we have shown as the variant of Ta. aam that occurs in Sumerian as 'am" and probably also the 'aamen" of the Christians. Chandogkya Upanishad calls this the "udgita' which is interestingly enough SumeroTamil: uL -giita, the sound deep within.

sahasra Su. sar-ges: 216,000, multitude    Ta. aayiram

The word " sar-ges" occurs in Sumerian  as the name of a  large number .i.e. 216 000 as well as in the sense of an indefinitely large number as in 'sa(g)-lu-sarges-ra" meaning 'among a multitude of men" (given C. J. Gadd p.29). So we can propose an origin and  change along the lines: sarges-ra> sages-ra> sahasra meaning however here a definite number of a thousand.  And further from this we have  sahasra> *ahasra>  aayiram: a thousand

sir-sa Su:  si , sag Ta. siir, siil, cuul: full, round

The term" sir-sa" is a compound that is derived from gluing together two distinct words 'sir' and 'sag" both of which have Su. parallels and Tamil derivatives. In Su. si is a very frequently occurring word with several distinct meanings some of which are: full, perfect, without blemishes etc. We have as the derivatives "si-imma": enough" sillimma: good tidings " sila: young of animals?  etc. Corresponding to all these we have Ta. sirr, siil , sinai and importantly cuul which though it means full and round comes to mean pregnancy because of the roundness of the belly at those times. The meaning we propose for "sir" here is 'round" and sir-sa = siil-sag: the round tip of a person and hence the head. The Sumerian origins  of sa(g) where the terminal -g comes in only in certain conjugations need not be  argued for , it is so ubiquitous.

purusah Su. buru, sag

We have already shown that Purusah< Su. buru-sa(g) really meaning  the Manifest BEING which when demythologized becomes the PoruL of Tolkaappiyam etc. We can provide additional support from the following line from Sulgi Hymn B (MutarIbiyam)

158. tigi a-da-ab nam-nar su-du-a buru dagal-bi mu-zu

    I penetrated the depth and width of the  consummate musical training of the tigi and adab compositions

"buru" here is knowledge and hence Tamil pulu> pulan etc. "pulan" in Tamil also means that which reveals itself as in "pozutu pulartal"  etc. And hence puru= poru< buru : that which discloses itself. and Purusa: that Person who discloses part of Himself, hence the  Manifest BEING

Aksa:  Su. igi, si;  Ta. akki. imai

Again in Su. igi in the sense of eyes and knowledge are  frequently come across. An interesting instance is the following from Sulgi hymn B

20. dub-sar ig-tag-a nig-e nu-dab-be-em-en

Whatever the teacher brought forward , I let nothing go by!

Here 'ig(i)-tag-a" lit. means presenting for the eyes to behold but actually meaning  making a person understand, hence we have ig-si: that which makes possible the seeing and from this ig-si> aksi, etc. akki
 

paat Su. pa-e Ta. paay

We see that most of the terms for the limbs are derived either how they appear or the  functions they perform. For. Ta. taaL: legs, actually something long and elongated Ta. karam : hands, meaning actually doing something, effecting an action. So it may be possible that the Sk. paat meaning legs is derived from verb Su. pa: to spread and to which corresponds Ta. paay: to jump  pounce etc.

The following occurrence of Su. pa, is given as evidence.

Again from Sulgi Hymn B,

2.u -sud-du (For distant days)     inim  (words)   pa-e ( in order to spread)   ag-de (he made)

So again the phrase 'sshasra sirsah" sahasra aksa' and 'sahasra paat' appear to be variants of Sumero Tamil
 
 

We shall take now the phrase "  sa bhuumin visvato urtvaa" (º¡ âÁ¢ý Å¢ŠÅ§¾¡ °÷òÅ¡)

. Sk : sa   Su. sa(g) Ta. caan as in caan-R-oor , > taan: one etc.

Since 'sag' is one the most frequently occurring words where it is normally pronounced as 'saa' except when followed by other words, it's identity with Sk. sa need not  be labored.

Sk bhuumi Ta. puumi : earth; , puu: to reveal disclose  Su. bur, bu,: to reveal; Su. mi : woman

We can take 'bhuu-mi' to have been derived agglutinatively by gluing together the two distinct words 'bu/buu"  meaning to reveal, disclose and 'mi' meaning woman.

From Su.  we have 'bur' meaning ' to loosen, open, to interpret or reveal a dream, hence a noun 'ka-bur' , an opening in the wall. Below we have an instance of "ka-bur' where we should note that  ka> Ta. vaay: the mouth or opening where the original 'ka' is  retained  to this day in 'kaa-viri" the name for the river in Tamil Nadu where it may mean ' a branching and broadening mouth"

CJ. Gadd (p. 133)

20 zi-u(d)-sud-du ma-gur(r)-gur ( in the mighty ship) ka-bur( an opening)    mu-un-da-bur (bored.

The verb 'bur" in the mu-un-da-bur is the Ta. puri: to make, do etc.

The verb 'bur" in the sense of 'reveal" occurs below also

Siirbiyam

57. ni-ku-sa-ga-na     nam-mu-da-an-bur-re
She no longer reveals to him her innermost treasures

While it may be possible that ' buumi'  is derive from this word buur-(m)-i> buumi , a better alternative will be to derive it form 'buur-mi' where 'mi ' stands for 'woman ' a variant t of what is written as 'gi' (=ngi?). However fortunately Su. abounds with the occurrence of 'mi' as woman as the following line would indicate

Siirbiyam

 55. mi-bi dam-a-ni-ta     sa-ga na-an-da-ab-be
        Its woman no longer speaks of love with her husband

The 'buumi' has always been considered anthropomorphically a woman in view of the fact 'she' produces all the vegetation etc. It may be possible this earlier anthropomorphism is retained in 'buumi"

The accusative sense of buumi-n/ bhuumi-n can be accounted for by taking it as variant of Su. buu-mi-ne where  there is vowel deletion , a frequent phenomena in Sk.
 

 Sk. visva Su. ba: to give, portion out etc., a pronoun ;  Ta. paa:  to give , portion out etc. Ta.  pa: a pronoun meaning 'many' as 'en-pa" etc.

In Su. there are some   verbal infixes the real meanings of which remain still uncertain because the grammar of the verbal complexes is still ill understood and are " bi, bi-ib bi-in" along with "si, si-ib, si-in " etc.  I think 'si' and 'bi' in addition to their pronominal significance also mean that which stands  disclosed, shining in the open etc. a meaning well known with 'si" the cikaaram, the light. The following cases may be sighted here.

Siirbiyam

51. uru kur  za-ra    li-bi-in-du-ga
    Over the city which has not declared "The land is yours"

52. a-a- ugu-za    li-bi-in-es-a
    Which has not declared    "It is your father's, your begetters"

Here forgetting the negative sense and omitting the 'na"  we have verbs like  "bi-in-du-ga" ( has declared); "bi-in-es-a" ( has sung ). The 'bi" here could not be the "its' sense  as in 'gal-bi" etc. but rather something like 'si' i.e., 'being -there" etc.

Thus combining the two we get 'bi-is-ba" meaning something already there , already brought into being.

Sk urtvaa

This need  not be argued very elaborately as it can be quite easily  derived from "uur-tu-va< Su. ur-tu-ba < Su. ur-su-ba meaning 'to arise above or one who has risen above. We have Su. ur/hur as in hursag, sag-ur etc. and Ta. uyar, oor.

Thus we can reconstruct the Su. original as " sa(g)  bu-mi-ne bi-is-ba-ta-u ur-tu-ba"

(to continue)6


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