Sarasvati in SumeruTamil Literature
Dr K.Loganathan 2004
Prelude:
The SumeruTamils were not only the inventors of the world's first script but also those who had schools for children the e-dub-ba( Ta, il tubbu) for teaching the art of writing and reading. As such it is not surprising that Goddess Sarasvati also called Dinger Nishaba was a Goddess worshiped by the scholarly including the school children as is the case even to-day. I give textual evidences for such claims iin the brief note I wrote a few years ago. In Sumeria there was also a Temple for Goddess Sara and who may actually be Goddess Sarasvati also mentioend in Rig Veda.
Thanks to the great efforts of many scholars, there is now a view that Indian Civilization is largely local with migrant groups from Africa and so forth. It also appears to me that there were not any European related Aryan tribes who poured into India, chased down south the Dravidian folks and established the Aryan civilization and so forth and thus something similar that happened when the Europan powers poured into the weak India a few centuries ago. Now with the discovery of Indus Civilization there has been considerable change in this view even though there are many uncertainties surrounding the people who established the Indus civilation though many ascribe it to Dravidian folks. It appears also to me that there were migeations from Sumeria probably a REVERSE one possibly after the co;;apse of Third Ur dynasty in Sumer around 2000 BC or so. So instead of talking about AIT we might as well talk about Sumerian Migration Theory (SMT)
As I study the Sumerian texts the Tamil character of which is quite obvious (to me) and Rig Veda, which appears a late variant of this Archaic Tamil, I believe the SMT is a strong possibility. I think the genesis of Indian Civilization as we know today should include also the Sumerian and that the ancient Bharatam of the 3rd millennium world was in fact the land stretching at least from the valleys of Indus to the valleys Tigris and Euphrates( at least) Perhaps across this vast area there were a homogeneous group of people largely blacks and migrants from Africa.
That Sumerian is Indian or more especially Dravidian will be clear for anyone who takes the trouble to study them with a sufficient background knowledge of Classical Tamil and other Dravidian languages. As I continue my studies of Rig Veda I cannot also deny that the language is almost the same as SumeroTamil but certainly less archaic and hence perhaps a late variant of it.
To substantiate this I want to show the presence of Sarasvati in Sumerian literature as the deity of language and learning.
In Rig Veda one of the places it occurs is 1: 3:10
Paavaka nah sarasvati vajebhir vajinivati
Ta. paavakam niiah sarasvati vaacipeer vaasiniivati : Sarasvati! In great (nii-a> nah) songs (paavakam) among the singers ( vajebhir) you emerge (niivati) as the words (vaji> vaaci< vaakku)
The meaning is given as synonym for ‘vac' or speech; divine knowledge and the deity possessing these is Sarasvati etc.
Gadd in his “Sumerian: Reading Book” gives the name of Sarvati as a deity in one of his citations, the original source of which I cannot trace. The line is as follows:
(dinger) Sar-sarbati mu-nam-lugal-la-ma ne-ib-gu-ul-la ( The god Sar-sarbati who magnifies the name of my royalty” (p.19)
It may be possible that ‘sar-sarbati” is ‘sur-sarbati” where ‘sur' means ‘bright, brilliant, divine ' etc i.e. Ta. suul, suur, Su. sul. sur, sun etc. The similarity of “sarbati' with Sarasvati is close enough to suggest that both are the same.
This deity was also known as Dinger Nisaba or Nidaba where the identity with the present Sarasvati or KalaivaaNi is quite obvious. We should note here that the name Nisaba is derived from the words ‘ni or nin' meaning a female deity and ‘shaba' which also occurs as an assembly where people come together and talk and discuss and hence related Ta. Sk sabah and Ta. cabai, avai. It may also be related to Ta. cattam,captam Sk sabda: noise, words etc. There are also related words in Su. as japag i.e. Ta. jabam, cepam, cebi caabam etc.
From Sulgi Hymn B we have:
18. dingir Nidaba sig-ga Nidaba-ke ( (As for me) goddess Nidaba, fair faced Nidaba)
19. gestu-gizzal-la su dagal-la ma-ni-in -dug ( With gebeous habds, provided me with intelligence and wisdom)
Ta. tingir Nidaba cokka Nidabakkee
Kestu kiiccalla suur takalla emmanin tuukk.u
These lines occur in connection with Sulgi's childhood education in e-dub-ba, the tablet house, the primary school of those days. The term ‘gestu-gizzal-la” is very descriptive i.e. Ta. kattu kiiccalla (reciting in loud and shrill voice) where we can see that the children were reciting loudly some selected texts and at the command of the teacher, the dub-sar. The term ‘dub-sar' is also significant and it means Ta. tubbu saaR.u i.e. reading the tablet.
This may give us a clue to the etymology of ‘sarbati” where ‘sar' may be the same as the ‘sar' in ‘dub-sar' though in Ta. it exist as saaR.u, to tell, relate announce etc. We may link this with Ta. caattan (scholar) caattiram( treatises) and which exist in Sk as sastry, sastra etc
The following lines from En Hudu Anna's Kes temple Hymn (c. 2200 BC) are also highly relevant for our purposes here.
Kes temple Hymn
9. (d) en-lil-le kes ja-mi am-ma -ab-be ( Enlil spoke the praises of Kes)
- Ta. keeci kunRa-kunRa saangka uzubi ( When Kes was lifting its head (or rising up) )
- Ta. ENliil-lee keeci caamiyamma abaiyee ( Enlil announced the divine greatness of Keeci)
( za-mi = ja-mi Ta. caami : divine, lofty etc; ab-be Ta. abaiyee< Ta, aa: to open the mouth; avai : assembly)
10. (d) nisaba nu-ka-as-bi-um (Nisaba was its princely ? arbiter..)
11. inim-bi-ta sa-gin im-da-an-sur ( With its words she wove it intricately like a net)
- Ta. 10. Nisaba nuul kaappiyam ( Nisaba was composer of the text )
- Ta. 11. enambittu caal-ngin ii-im iduvan suRRu ( with words she weaved it like a net)
(nu-kas-bi-um Ta. nuul kaappiyam ; Ta: nuul: text ; sur Ta. cuRRu : to spin, weave etc)
12. dub-ba sar-sar su-se al-ga-ga ( Written on tablets it was held in (her) hands)
- Ta. tubbu saaRRu-saaRRu cuur-ceey val kaalkaal ( The tablets announcing (it all) was held in her hands firmly)
(al Ta, val: firmly, here an adverb; sar Ta. caaRRu : to announce or sari: to drw out?)
Here Nisaba is Nuul kaappiyam (nu-ka-as-bi-um) meaning a weaver of texts and where ‘sar' means to write or scratch as lines. sari> ari> vari, varai: to draw?
Thus Sarasvati as the Goddess of Learning or Vac also existed in Sumeria and very probably native to the Sumerian as they were the inventors of the cuneiform script and which allowed the writing down of oral literature and thereby paved the way for the establishment of schools and colleges and hence an occupational class, the dub-sar, those who taught the children the art of writing and reading (among others).
The prominent place accorded to Sarasvati in Rig Veda to the negligence of other female deities in the Sumerian pantheon suggests that the Kavis who sang the hymns were probably a class of dub-sars i.e. the ordinary teachers who later became a kind of Brahmanahs rishies or sastries(Ta, caattan)