Thursday, November 19, 2009

212. PāDi



‘PāDi ‘is a familiar Tulu word representing an area with trees. The word ‘pāDi’ also occurs as suffix in place names like Gopādi, Bopādi, Katapādi, Bellarapādi, Kannarapadi, Bettamapadi, Talapadi, Talipadi, Baikampādi etc. Presence of place-names like Katpadi in Tamilanadu suggests that it is a common Dravida word. However, available data suggests that the word ‘pāDi’ was borrowed from pre-Dravidian Munda group of languages and culture.
For example, the bari or gotra (sept or clan) system is known as ‘pāDi’ among Gond tribes of Vidarbha. Gonds are members of Munda group of Austro-Asiatic tribes that were widespread in the peninsula in the antiquity.
Vanajaputta Manjunatta pointed out that the Gotra or Bari (sept or clan) system prevails among the Gond tribes and is known as ‘padi’ (pronounced ‘pāDi’). ‘Gonds of Vidarbha ‘ by S. G Deogaonkar gives outlines of the pādi system among Gond tribes.
Gonds are a group of ancient Austro- Asiatics or Munda tribes, who have evolved with passage of time and have assimilated socio-cultural features and customs from various immigrant communities and groups.
The word ‘padi’ at present means a group of houses in the Gond language.
Further, tThe old word pāDi has become hāDi in later Kannada after 10th Century CE, with transition of pa> ha.
ADi & pāDi
Compare the word ‘pādi’ with another related word namely ‘āDi’. Adi is also a suffix in place-names such as Nelyadi, Kalyadi, Kanyadi, Amtadi, Nekkiladi, Bannadi, Hemmadi, Hejmadi, etc.
As discussed in a previous post, it appears that the word ‘āDi’ originally represented shade of a tree. To begin with, in the primitive days of early civilization, the shade of a tree in sunny, tropical countries apparently constituted the comfortable habitation of early man. Hence the suffix –aDi was used to designate early habitation names. The root word ‘aD’ meant a tree as we notice in the derived words ‘aDar’ (=twig) and ‘aDavi’(=forest). In the early days of civilization, parts of dried tree (twigs etc) were used to ignite fire and to cook. Hence the root ‘aD’ also stood for the verb ‘ (to) cook’, from which words like ‘aDpini’(=cooking), ‘aDpil’(=kitchen), ‘aDDe’(=coked food), aDve(=forest) etc were derived.
paDi = pa+aDi
If ‘aDi’=shade of a tree, then ‘pāDi’= shade of group of trees or shady grove.
Thus in the due course of time, the word pāDi developed in scope to represent a comfortable residential area that consisted of a group of habitation of related people.
Prefix pa- occurs in a number of spatial names such as panja (pa+anja), pangala (pa+angala), pāndi (pa+anDi) etc. Usage of pa- as prefix in these words suggests that it carries shades of meanings such as water body,greenish area,or even good or comfortable.
Similarly there are two more suffixes namely ‘nāDi ‘(Pachanadi, Manjanadi) and ‘māDi’ (Hemmadi, Hejamadi,) that can be analysed as follows:
Na+aDi= =cultivated tree or na+aD+i= cultivated area.
Ma+aDi= elevated area.
pāDa
There is another suffix similar or equivalent to pāDi , namely pāDa.
Da= locality or area in Munda languages.
pa+Da. PāDa= Comfortable area or greenish ( sylvan) area.
There are several localities in Maharastra having a prefix of –pāDa, such as
AgripāDa (Mumbai), Dandpada etc.
The word 'pata'appears to be related to or derived from pada.
PaTa (=cloth piece),possibly >PaTan>PaTTana>PaTna. Variant of Pata is paDa (short vowel 'a'), a carpet of coir or cloth. PaDa, made of coir, is used for drying the cured fish.

VāDa
Another related word is spatial suffix -vada.
Va+Da. Both the words -va and- Da are spatial suffixes. Suffix -va (as in Shirva, Urva, Kolva, etc) has been extensively discussed in an earlier post.
There are several place names having suffix of vada in southern India, such as Vijayavada, Kolivada, etc. There are numerous –vada places near Karawar. KaDvaD, ZarivaDa, HarvaDa, DharvaDa,etc. The original name of the Karawar town is known to be ‘KaDvaDa’ (=village beside a river ferry; kaD= river bank or ferry, vaDa= habitation area).
VāDi
Like the pāDa and pāDi spatial word pair, we also have vāDi for vāDa!
Vādi occurs as an independent place-name (for example, VāDi , a Railway junction in Gulbarga district) [va+aDi = habitation area] or as a suffix in toponyms such as Belavadi, Tilakvadi, etc.
PāDa-pāDi, vāDa-vāDi, bāDa-bāDi
Apart from these there is one more related suffix, namely -bāDi ( as in Kodimbadi,Kedambadi, Kannambadi etc).Pairing with bāDi is another suffix bāDa which forms several place names especially in Uttara Kannada.
The analyses of these related spatial suffixes hint at the possibility of -aDi and -Da being regional variants of the same word from Munda languages. It appears that Dravidian languages picked up and assimilated some of the pre-existing Munda words in the region.

-With Hosabettu Vishwanath.
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5 comments:

  1. Genetically, Gonds are not a Austro-Asiatic people but Dravidians matching their linguistic profile. Their male and female lineages are same as that of other Dravidian male and females.

    Some of the Gond tribes living at close quarters with Munda tribes have Austro-Asiatic male lineages because of admixture. This is true in the case of Mundas too as they have mostly Dravidian maternal lineages and few Dravidian paternal lineages too.

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  2. Are you sure that Gonds and Mundas are genetically Dravidians?
    Or is it that Dravidians inherited genetic signatures from the Munda-Gond tribes?
    My analysis-correct me if I am wrong- cumulatively shows me that the terrain was dominated earlier by Munda-Gond people in the beginning probably until ca.600-400 BC when the 'Dravidian proper' immigrants came in from north and gradually assimilated with the prior settlers/aborigines.

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  3. I'm talking about uniparental lineages like Y-chromosome (in the case of males which corresponds to patrilineally inherited surnames only in males) and mitochondrial DNA which is matrilineally inherited (both male and female and corresponds to matrilineally inherited family names like in Malayalis and Tuluvas).

    In this sense, Gonds and other Dravidians are similar (mainly carry Y-chromosomes named as Y-haplogroup H, L, J2b, R2 etc... though later lineage like R1a1 which makes up 35-50% Indo-Aryan speakers of North India and generally associated with IE expansion may form 10-20% of Dravidian tribes and castes too).

    However, Mundas aren't Dravidians as they carry Y-chromosome haplogroup O2a predominantly which is the major lineage of Austro-Asiatic speakers in SE Asia. This of course, corresponds to Munda languages too as it's part of Austro-Asiatic family of languages. Therefore, Gonds are Dravidians like us but Mundas are not which of course is obvious in the language families.

    However, in the case, female lineages (mtDNA) most of these groups carry South Asia specific lineages.

    Among major Dravidian male lineages:
    H - Nearly 99% found in South Asia
    L and R2 - Nearly 90-95% found in South Asia
    J2b - may make up 10-15% in West Asia and Southern Europe and among Dravidians...the only Mediterranean marker (May be you can attribute Dravidian languages to the elite domination of these Neolithic migrants from West Asia but I prefer our matrilineages as you don't find any different languages families in Dravidian regions but which is not the case in North India).
    R1a1: Mostly observed in North India, Central Asia and Eastern Europe (35-60%). Frequency goes down from 30-0% in Western Europe. Iran and South India may carry around 10-15% of this lineage.

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  4. Thank You, Manjunath.Genome data are quite intersting, though the spread and scope of genetic studies on Dravidians and Mundas appear quite insufficent to me..
    Besides,I don't think the data cited by you contradicts with what I have proposed.
    Basically, data on Dravidians with several genetic groups reflect to me that they are admixtures of several layers of immigration cycles.
    Probably, data on Indian Munda groups is insuffiecient.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank You, Manjunath.Genome data are quite intersting, though the spread and scope of genetic studies on Dravidians and Mundas appear quite insufficent to me..
    Besides,I don't think the data cited by you contradicts with what I have proposed.
    Basically, data on Dravidians with several genetic groups reflect to me that they are admixtures of several layers of immigration cycles.
    Probably, data on Indian Munda groups is insuffiecient.

    ReplyDelete