The
Padanagdi (alias Padavinangadi) is a vibrant locality on the Airport road
leading from Yeyyadi to Bondel- Kavur in Northeastern part of Mangaluru city.
The “Padangadi” ( padangaDi : first d
pronounced as in English word: the; second D as in English Dog) is an ancient Tulu locality name that is also known by its Kannada version “PadavinangaDi”.
There is
also a serene village known as “Padangadi” (pronounced paDangaDi: both D as in Dog) in Beltangadi Taluk of Dakshina
Kannada district, Karnataka.
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| Location map of Padangadi, Mangaluru. |
Ancient words
The words in
ancient place names are like preserved old coins that are useful in
understanding stages of generally masked or obscure pages of early history of
this land which has not been documented otherwise. In other words, the
surviving ancient words can be compared to fossils in the science of
paleontology that throw significant light on the reconstruction of bygone days
of past life history, paleo-ecology and environment.
Padangadi vs. Padavinangadi
Now, of the
two (Tulu- Padangadi /Kannada- Padavinangadi) names for the Mangaluru locality under
study, which one is the older?
Going by the
regional linguistic evolutionary
analysis carried out in the older posts in this blog, it can be summarized that
during the early three to four centuries of the Common Era, Prakrit was the dominant/administrative
language in Karnataka including coastal Tulunadu. During fourth century CE
onwards old Kannada (“Halegannada”) was introduced by Kadambas as
administrative language as we find in Halmidi inscription. At that time, Old
Tulu was in usage in coastal Tulunadu. Old Tulu and Old Kannada were closely
related languages by then, more like regional variants of a single language, as
we find many Tulu equivalent words ( that are now obsolete or modified in
modern Kannada) in the Halmidi inscription.
Subsequently, Kannada was imposed as administrative language in coastal Karnataka (Tulunadu)
by the Vijayanagar Kings during and after 12th century CE. Under this program parts of Tulu regions
around Barkur were brought under the intensive influence of Kannada. During
the Kannada period, most of the local names were translated to Kannada prevalent in the period.
Therefore,
the Kannada version of the locality name Padavinangadi
can be dated to 12th Century CE or later, attributable to the influence
of ambient Kannada kings.
Padangadi
What could
be the original meaning of the composite word Padangadi ?
For a
simplistic analysis, if you split the word into pad(a) + angadi: we can find 9
possible meanings for the words ‘pad’ and ‘pada’ in Tulu Nighantu, Vol. 5 .
Pad = (a) ten (b)shrink;
Pada =(c) level, status (d) word (e) song
(f) maturity (g) square pattern (h) tranquility and (i) sole or foot step.
It can seen that those who
translated the original Tulu word ‘Padangadi
‘ into ‘Padavinangadi’ under the regional “Kannadaization” program, utilized the meaning #(c) ie., the level ground. The Tulu
geographic term “padavu” represents a lateritic plateau or a planar open field.
As a contrast, the term “angadi”
(pronounced: angaDi) is a common word
for a shop or a marketing stall in most of the Dravidian languages, including
Tulu and Kannada.
If you analyze this particular
word as ang+Di, you get the meaning of an open area or
open field. The ang means open; as in
angai (ang+kai=open hand; palm of hand). Or as in Tulu phrase: bāyi angāvu open (your) mouth.
~Di , as in angadi, is a spatial suffix
in ancient Indian languages. (Examples:
Garodi, Gardadi, Tadadi, etc). From the suffix ~Di,
further suffixes ~Adi
and ~Odi have evolved.
The original meaning of the word angadi, as courtyard or open field is still
preserved in Parji language.
Since early days of civilization open fields
or yards were used for selling goods on a designated day of the week. The open
market was known as “santhe”. From the ancient markets in open yards, the usage
of the word angadi was later applied
to shops.
PaDangaDi
There is another interesting
twist to the story offered by the “Padangadi”, name of the village in
Beltangadi Taluk, located on the Guruvāyana-kere - Venur stretch of road. This
particular village name is pronounced locally as “paDangaDi” (D as in Dog) adding a tinge
of dilemma to our derivation of the meaning of the place
name.
Which of the two toponymic pronunciations: padangaDi and paDangaDi -
is original one and which one was modified with passage of time?
 |
| Cenang beach, Kedah, Langkawi, Malaysia |
Padang : Southeast Asia connection
Since ~Di, is an ancient spatial indicator
suffix, we can also think of analyzing the word Padangadi as Padang+Di or Padang+aDi. Thus, we
confront with a new word
Padang.
A recent visit on
tour to Malaysia and Singapore, enlightened me regarding the word Padang.
The Padang is a usual toponymic word in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia,
Mynamar and other Southeast Asian countries. Besides, the place name “Padang”
also means an open field in Malayan language.
Incidentally,
there are many place names in these Southeast Asian countries that contain the
suffix ~ang, such as Padang, Penang,
Kallang, Cenang etc.
By the bye,
the words containing Padang are not limited to coastal Tulunadu alone. Similar place names are
also found in parts of Orissa and Rajasthan suggesting the wide distribution of early phases of Austro-Asiatic cultures in different parts of
India.
Thus after an overall analysis, we can
conclude that the ancient place name Padangadi evolved from the words of Austro-Asiatic-
Munda origin, namely: padang+adi .
Austro-Asiatic languages
Early forms
of Munda languages had their sway in southern India during and before the early
centuries of the Common Era, as evident from the existence of umpteen fossil Munda
words and related cultural vestiges preserved in Tulu and other Dravidian languages.
( Older posts in this blog.). The Munda languages of India (now surviving
mainly in central and eastern parts of India) are considered to be a part of the
ancient Austro-Asiatic language family.
R
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