409. Non-Greek words in Oxyrhynchus papyrus No. 413

In the year 1897, archaeological excavations in a place called Oxyrhynchus in Lower Egypt unearthed a number of ancient papyri documents. A papyrus is a vegetal material prepared from the pithy stem of a watery plant. In ancient Mediterranean areas, before the days of invention of writing paper, the papyri were used for writing, drawing or painting instead of paper. These papyri discovered at Oxyrhynchus were subsequently transcribed and published by British historians Bernard Payne Grenfell and Arther Surridge Hunt in the year 1903 through Oxford University Press. One of the Oxyrhynchus papyri, No 413 (often denoted as P. Oxy 413) on which a Greek farce (drama) has been written, also known as “Charition mime”, dated approximately second century 150 CE, has been found to contain several non-Greek words. Charition was the name of the lead lady character in the farce.

A German Professor, Dr. Eugene Hultzsch, an Indologist, expert in Sanskrit and Dravidian languages, was the first to recognize Dravidian “Kanarese” (Kannada) words in the Charition mime. The English translation of his paper was published in the Journal of Royal Asiatic Society in 1904.

Mysore Archeological Report for the year 1926 -27 carried an article on the said Oxyrhynchus papyrus No 413 and interpreted the non-Greek words to be words of Kannada language. In that, it was interpreted to have been connected with Malpe seashore near Udupi on the West Coast of Karnataka India. Subsequently, S Srikantaiah published a paper on this issue in Quarterly of Mythic Society of Bengaluru and interpreted the non Greek words to be of Tamil language.

Further a number of Kannada experts like R. Shama Shastri (then Director of Archeological researches in Mysore), B.A. Saletore, Hampa Nagarajaiah etc have looked into these strange words and have offered their opinions interpreted as Kannada words. However, some Western authors like L.D Barnett (1926) have expressed their serious doubts regarding the ‘Kanarese’ (Kannada) interpretations.

Manjeshwara Govinda Pai published an analytical review on the topic in the year 1929, which has been reprinted in the commemorative volume (“Govinda Pai Samshodhana Samputa: 1883-1963”). Budhanand Shivalli (1982) in “Tulu Patero” also reviewed the discussions on the said Oxyrhynchus papyrus.

Excerpts of the last two write ups shall be discussed in this post, of course peppered with our analytical observations.

Theme of  Charition mime (Oxyrhynchus papyrus No.413)

A boat carrying a group of Greek tourists consisting of a young lady, Charition and others was wrecked up while sailing in the Indian Ocean and the inmates reached a coastal village apparently, in the West Coast of India. The girl and servants were held captive in a moon temple under the aegis of local King or chieftain. Later her brother came searching for her and found her in the temple and planned to take her home. A wine party was arranged in the village by the brother.  While the chieftain was intoxicated in the party the brother rescued his sister and takes her back   to his homeland by boat.

Greek alphabets

Govinda Pai (1929) has pointed out that the Greek alphabets are basically deficient in aspirates, so as to express Indian words clearly. There are specifically no- cha (ಚ), chha (ಛ), ja (ಜ), jha (ಝ), jna(ಞ); Ta (ಟ), Tha (ಠ), Da (ಡ),  Dha (ಢ), Na (ಣ); sha (ಶ), shha (ಷ), ha (ಹ), lha (ಳ)  in the Greek alphabets. So interpretations of non Greek words in the mime should necessarily take heed of these absent alphabets.

Indian seashore : Malpe?

The mention of “Indas Pelagos” (=Indian Ocean), “Indas Promoi” (Indian chiefs) and reference to the Paral…[Parolios/Paralion](=seashore) in the Greek farce, suggests that the non-Greek words could be referring to the Indian seashore. Consequently, some of the Kannada experts interpreted the phrase “malpiniak..” in the farce as ‘Malpe Nayaka’ or a chieftain of the port town of Malpe, near Udupi.

However, there are some issues in the Greek farce that do not match with the Malpe setting. Like the reference to “thea Selene” (the moon goddess), popular in Greek mythology. We have not heard of the cult of moon goddess in Karavali coast in records. Similarly, the river Psolichus apparently does not matches with any of the existing rivers around Malpe.

Yet, it has been suggested that such logical discrepancies (or apparent inaccuracies) reveal that the farce composer/writer did not actually visited India but probably heard about these Indian words and milieu  through discussions with sailors or travelers who had traveled Indian ports; and that the words were used in the farce just for fun. Even Greek historians Pliny and Ptolemy are said to have based their descriptions of ancient India based exclusively on the accounts they heard from sailors.

Probable Kannada words

Some samples of the probable Kannada words recognized or interpreted in the Greek farce by various Kannada experts are as follows:

Echousi=ಏ ಕೂಸೆ.

Kraunou=ಕರೆವನೌ, ಕರೆವನೊ

Lalle=ಅಲ್ಲೆ

Laita Lianta lalle=ಐತಾ ಅಂತಾಳಲ್ಲೆ

Laspathia=ಲೇಸು ಪಡೆಯ

Arminthi=ಆರ್ ಮಿಂದೆ?

Alemaka =ಅಲೆ ಎಮ್ಮಕ್ಕ

Minei=ಮೀಣವೆ?

Seo sarachis=ಶಿವ ಸಂರಕ್ಷಿಸು

(S)ouamesare=ಸೋಮೇಶ್ವರ

Apuleuksaar= ಆ ಪುಳೆಯ ಕಸರು.

Etc.

Probable Tulu words

If the place they arrived at was Malpe, the language around the period 150 CE should have been Tulu rather than Kannada. Budhananda Shivalli(1982) transcribed the non-Greek phrase “Malpiniak ourouk oukooubj”   into Tulu language as (“ಮಲ್ಪಿ ನಾಯ್ಕೆ ಒರೊಕು ಓಕೊಮುಜೆ”), the Malpi Nayaka does not respond at once (since he is drunk).

Besides, the transcription of one of the non-Greek word namely, “menai” (“ಮಿಯಾನಾ?”) - appears quite close to the native Tulu version of “Did you take bath?”

Shiva Prasad (1985) and Padmanabha Upadhyaya (1996) have also explored the possibility of Tulu words in the Charition mime.

Malpe or Alupe?

Govinda Pai (1929) noted that in Greek there is a practice of adding ‘m’ to words beginning with vowels ,based on the information he gathered from Liddel and Scott’s Greek English Lexicon ,p.408. (He interpreted the word “martha” in the farce   as “artha” based on this presumption.

If we extend the logic and apply it to the word “Malpiniak” in the farce, it would be:  ”Alpiniak” or Alupe Nayak!

DISCUSSION

The Charition mime in Oxyrhynchus papyrus 413 has been considered as an anonymous adaptation of earlier Greek drama “Iphigenia in Tauris” by Euripides, composed between 414 and 412 BCE. The theme of Charition mime has shades of influence of the drama of Odyssey. The farce may have been composed by an unknown writer under the influence of earlier Greek dramas such as Iphegenia and Odyssey. The writer apparently composed the theme of Charition based on the accounts he heard from sailors to Indian ports.

Thus the reference to the temple of “Thea Selene”, the Mood Goddess whose cult was prevalent in Greek region, appears strange to Indians since we have no record of Moon Goddess here. Some have tried to identify Indian God “Someshwara”, Shiva with moon, but it is not known if the cult of Someshwara existed during 2^nd century CE or earlier, as the Shambu kallu Someshwara temple at Udyavara has been estimated to be of about 9^th century CE. 

The place of action on the Indian coast has been identified as Malpe (near Udupi) based a phrase containing reference to “malpiniak..” It is possible that it was the name of the chieftain, something like Mallappa Nayka. Alternately, if we consider that the initial m in the phrase “malpiniak” was added customarily, then without initial m, the word would be:  “Alpiniak” or Alupa Nayak.

Alupe
It appears that the Alupe suburb, in eastern part of the present Mangaluru city,  was the coastal port village during the period of composition of Charition mime. The Alupe was the home town of  historically renowned Alupa kings of Tulunadu,

Why not Malpe?

Why the place could not have been Malpe, which is presently a port on the West Coast? Because during the estimated period of composition of the Charition mime (ie. about -or before- first century CE, the Western strip of present West Coast (including Malpe) was under the Sea.(Read our Post No.  On “Parashurama Shristi”).

Note that the Greek travelogues of the same period attributed to Pliny and Ptolemy have recorded port towns of “Oloikhor”a (interpreted as “Aluvakheda” or Alupe , located  in the Eastern part of Mangaluru city) and “Bacelore”  ( interpreted as Basarur, East of Kundapur). There are no mention of Malpe, Mangaluru or Kundapur in these records.

The language involved in these non-Greek words is also disputable. Recent researches (Shettar, 2007 ) suggest that in the early centuries Prakrit was the administrative language in ancient Karnataka rather than old Kannada. The Ashok edicts found in Karnataka are also in Prakrit language (300 BCE) rather than Kannada. Similar lingual situation could be deciphered in coastal regions of ancient Tulunadu.

Though Tulu was the dominant language in Karavali about 4^th century CE, before that period the available evidences suggest that either Tulu coexisted with Munda and Prakrit languages  or Prakrit/ Munda were the administrative language, as we find a rich list of place names in Tulunadu suggestive of Munda/Prakrit origin.

 I can give two simple examples to show the influence of Munda words in Tulu language during the early history: (1) The Tulu calendar year stars with the month of “Paggu”. The ‘paggu’ is a word of Munda origin which is the name of a traditional Munda festival. (2) The common word for surname in Tulu is “bari”.  Bari is another word of Munda origin which means a house (Note that word equivalent of Tulu ‘bari’ community-surname,  in our neighboring  Malayalam (Kerala) is “illam”, which also means house.)

In view of the known prevalence of Prakrit and Munda langauges in the peninsular India during the early period of Common Era, experts may need to look into these non-Greek words in the mime from the viewpoint of in Prakrit/Munda angle also.

REFERENCES

Budhananda Shivalli (1982) “Tulu Patero”: A philology and grammar of Tulu language.(in Tulu language). (ed: Dr B M Ravindra), Mandira Prakashana, Mangaluru, Karnataka, 2004, 318.p.

Govinda Pai, M. (1929 ) “Greek prahsanadalli kannaDa mAatugalu.: Oxyrhynchus Papyrus No 413” (in Kannada ). pp.67-76, In: Govinda Pai Samshodhana sampuTa (eds: Heranje Krishna Bhatta & Murulidhara Upadhya Hiriyadaka). Rashtrakavi Govinda Pai Samshodhana Kendra, MGM College, Udupi-576102.Karnataka. 1392 p.

Govinda Pai, M. (1961 ) “Udupi”. (in Kannada ). pp.647-649, In: Govinda Pai Samshodhana Samputa (eds: Heranje Krishna Bhatta & Murulidhara Upadhya Hiriyadaka). Rashtrakavi Govinda Pai Samshodhana Kendra, MGM College, Udupi-576102.Karnataka. 1392 p.

Shettar,Sh (2007) “Shangam tamiLagam mattu Kannada nAdu – nuDi: Aarambha kAlada draviDa sambandada chintane” (in Kannada). 262 p.Abhinava,Bengaluru,Karnataka,2010.

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charition_mime

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_Oxyrhynchus_413

www.wikivisually.com/wiki/Papyrus_Oxyrhynchus_413