எறும்புகள்/Erumbugal

Dr. Loga at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tolkaappiyar

Alex

The cuneiform system of writing emerges in the Uruk period and is transmitted in a simplified form to Elam. That the Sumerians were clearly the founders of the system of notation and writing which developed in the south is made clear by the fact that only Sumerian has the phoneme-values required to make the word for Enlil intelligible.126 The first numerical tablets found at Uruk are from the Uruk IV period, whereas those in Elam date from the following Uruk III period,127 showing that the transmission of writing to Elam was relatively late. The earliest tablets also give evidence of a sexagesimal system of measurement along with four other systems varied according to the objects being measured,128 whereas the Elamites used mostly just the decimal system.129 The Sumerians seem to have been responsible for both the administrative excellence attested by their invention of writing and the urban civilisation that the Uruk culture, which begins Sumerian civilisation proper, represents.130

Loga

I cannot but agree with Alex here when he attributes the invention of cuneif0orm scropt to the Sumerians and its diffusion to Elam and other nations later. The SumeroTamils have achieved a remarkable place in world history by this accomplishement as well as many others along qith that constituyes the basic elements of culture to-day.

Now along with this invention of a script that was syllabic and possibly helped because Archaic Tamil was syllabic and which it is even to-day, we have also various kinds of academic institutions such as colleges in the temples and palaces with huge libraries as well as schools for children, It is hardly rea;ozed now that featire of human culture throughout the world, that of school for children was a contribution of the SumeroTamils. This focus on Academies in culture gave the Tamils a distinct orientation to culture that distingushes them to this day. They view even existence as guided by Spititual Pefagogy where BEING-as-Siva sits as the President of the First SaGkam, a word that also occurs in Sumerian and about which I have already written quite extensively. It is interesting here that the only historical narratove we have among the Tamils about their own prehistory involves the Three SaGkams, the academies where the details of the Third and final SaGkam are reasonaly accurate and where the various texts of this period are still available. Perhaps this Third Academt can be placed around 500 BC to 300 AD and we have Tolkaappoyam as the earliest book.

While the historical First SaGkam may be located in Sumeria, the present day Iraq, the Second Academy may be somewhere in the North of India. Only future archeological diggings will solve the problems.

The follwing studies of mine may be interesting in connection with this academic culture.

http://arutkural.tripod.com/sumstudies/aca-sum.-tam.html

In view of the enormous importance of the school for children I reproduce a part of it that gives some description of the school, the tablet-house along with the etymological studies of the word Aryan which is SumeroTamil.

>>>>>>>>>>
. e-dub-ba : The School for Children. Ta. il tubbu
This is the most amazing aspect of the educational situation in Sumerian — the widespread presence of schools for children and in which they were taught the art of writing and reading. There are many details available on this topic including what went on inside the schools as many ‘essays’ composed by the children learning to write have been recovered in the form of clay tablets in just as written by the children.
11. lugal-e lugal-a-ri-a nin-e-tu-ud-me-en
I, the king of royal descent, whom a princess bore
Ta. uLukaLLee ulukaL aariya ninnee todda maan

12 Sul-gi-me-en dumu-gi sa-zi-ta nam-dug-tar-ra-me-en
I, Sulgi, the legitimate prince, was allotted a good destiny, right from the faithful heart
Ta. Cuulgi maan tamukii caaycitta tungka tarunam maan

13. tur-ra-mu-de e-dub-ba-a-a-am
Since my (very) youth I belonged to the edubba
Ta. tur-ra mutee il tubbaia aa aam

Let us consider these lines in some details before coming to consider some aspects of the school system itself.

He claims that he is “lugal-ari-a” which I take it as “uLukaL aariya” something semantically similar to Kamban’s use of “aariya maintan” in Kamba RamayaNam, meaning a brave and noble warrior. The term ” maintan” is derived from “maintu’ bravery and which may be related “mey, moy” as in ‘mey kiirtti ” a sense which is different from ‘mey” as truth also in extensive use in Sumerian. The word ‘aariya’ may be related Ta. aar meaning ‘amazing’ or ‘praise worthy” a sense in which it is also available in Sumerian as in the following line of the same text. (Ultimately the English warrior may be related to this.)

324. ar-e sag li-bi-til-til-la-mu
My praise will never be finished
Ta. aarree caak-u ili bi tiir tiirra moo

This ‘aar” may the root of such words as “arccanai’ ‘aaraatanai’ etc whixh are taken as Sk.

Another interesting word is ” nam-tar-ra” from which we probably have Ta. tarumam (tarmam) : the givenness sankriticed as “dharma”. “nam-duga-tar-ra-me-en” means here “one who is given a good destiny” taking ‘tar” as Ta. taru: to give. His good destiny is that he is given to be born as the true prince and excellent person ” dumu-gi sa-zi-ta” where “zi-ta” also of wide occurrence is the probably the archaic form of ‘catta’ and hence “cattiya”, the true also another word retained in Sk.

Part of this destiny underlying his birth as true prince is that he excelled in education in the elementary school , the e-dub-a , the house of tablets that he attended from his youth “tur-ra-mu-de” where both ‘tur” in the sense of small and mu-de ( mutee) in the ablative sense of “from” are still in use in Tamil. The Ta. tur as in turumbu simply means small. Another word retained in Akkadian is sihru which is quite obviously Ta. siRu, ultimately to be derived from Ta. cil, cin which occurs also in Sumerian in the sense of ’small’. The root appears to be ‘cillu’, meaning to spilt and probabaly this is the reason a path is called in Su. sil-a and which corresponds wwith Ta. caalai .
The “a-am” is Ta. aa aam : where ‘aa” means “becoming and “aam” the particle of emphasis as well as that of assent. . The ‘dub” though it does not exist as ‘tablet” but the sense is retained in “tuppu” a word polysemantic but one of the meanings of which is “clue” , something that requires deciphering, interpreting and so forth.

Thus we see here that Sulgi claims that in his youth or childhood he attended an elementary school ‘il-tubbu” and that it was also part of the good destiny - dharma that he was blessed with.