Hydronomy of Tamil rivers (Re: Again, SANSKRIT broadcasts)

[N. Ganesan]

Prof. Witzel wrote:
<<<
Obviously, when trying to etymologize S. Indian river names we have
to try  all Dravidian possibilities, -- within the realm of
probability.

River names are preferably taken from the color, speed,  shape of
rivers, but also from many other concepts than can be associated
with rivers.

When I  -jokingly- refered to "palm tree" rivers recently
(and last year),  I did not have access to K.H. Pinnow's Berlin
dissertation (unprinted) on Indian River names. (1951).

Among the many hundreds of river names, he has a list of some 30
rivers based on tree names (there  also are those based on flowers,
lotus  especially, grass, reed, sugar cane, pepper,and some other
plants).

The tree names (how could I forget the plakSa-born Sarasvatii?)
include:
* fig trees (plakSa, udumbara, pippala)
* sandal wood (candana)
* rose apple (jambu)
* 'wine palm'  (tAladhvajI, varuNatAlI, haritAla)
* other trees:  betel nut, palAza, kadamba, rohitaka, zalmali
>>>

Thanks for giving rivers named after the plant or plant products
from the Pinnow dissertation. A river in Coimbatore district
goes by the name kAJciyARu where "kAJci" is the river portia
tree. Its other name is noyyal river. On the kAJci river bed,
several archaeological finds dating first centuries CE exist.
A famous site is koTumaNal village (K. Rajan, Archaeology
of Western Kongu, Delhi), this village is the koDumaNam mentioned
in the CT text, patiRRuppattu. Noyyal has to do with
the fine nature of sand on this river banks.

Two famous places named after plants: KAnchipuram
is named after "kacci" - a (thorny) bush plant, also called as
"kaJci". CT and Tevaram call the kAnchipuram as kacci-p-pETu
only. I read that A. C. Burnell mentions the sanskritization
of this kacci/kaJci into kAnchi (Has to track down the reference).

Tradition in Tamil literature celebrates three Shiva sites
associated with the "marutu"(Skt. arjuna) tree. They are at
1) Srisailam 2) tiru-iTaimarutu-uur (madhyArjunam) in Thanjavur dist.
3) tiru-puTaimarutu-uur (puTArjunam) in Tinnevelly dist.
Vijayanagar Nayaks renovated/donated grants many times
to the arjuna stalams in TN.

I think the iizvara at Srisailam could have been something
like Lord of "white" marutu (in tamil, veNmarutu) tree.
This original meaning is lost when the Goddess of Sriparvatham
gets the name, bhramarAmbA and Shivanandalahari has a shlokam
telling the goddess as a bee encircles the lord who is jasmine!
This is different from Tamil (and Sanskrit?) sangam poetry
where only male bees go around to flowers to take honey, jiving with
the socital norm that women only were expected to maintain marital
piety.

A. K. Ramanujan was surprised to learn this (after he translated
mallikArjuna as Lord of the White Jasmine!). The arjuna tree
connection is lost due to Sanskritization. Something like
folk tradition explaining beLagAvi/Belgaum (< vELagrama) as
"village of mallige".

Regards,
N. Ganesan

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