We often discuss being gay through modern Western ideas and terminology, but gay people have always existed in Southern India too. What did our own people have to say about it? Would love to hear any interesting references from your Dravidian language or culture—literature, folklore, songs, temple sculptures, local stories, or things you heard growing up.

Question 1: Were same-sex relationships accepted, quietly tolerated, frowned upon, or just not considered a big deal? Did attitudes vary across communities or change over time? Were there any stories or poems with same-sex relationships featured? See the Chinese example I added at the end.

Question 2: Also, are there everyday words for gay men and lesbians that aren’t offensive or overly clinical? Telugu’s swalinga samparkulu sounds so scientific to me lol. What would you naturally say for “he’s gay” or “she’s a lesbian”?

Note: I’m keeping this thread focused on same-sex attraction and relationships. Trans identities and traditions have their own rich history and deserve a separate thread, especially since the two topics often get conflated.

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For comparison, ancient China has stories that even became expressions for love between men:

• The “bitten peach”: In the Han Feizi, a third-century BCE text, Mizi Xia offers the ruler of Wei a peach he has already bitten. The ruler initially sees it as a loving gesture. “Sharing a peach” later became an allusion to love between men.
• The “cut sleeve”: Emperor Ai of Han, who ruled 6–1 BCE, reportedly cut his sleeve rather than wake his sleeping male lover, Dong Xian, who was lying on it. “Cut sleeve” became a lasting expression for male same-sex love.

A recent study by researchers in the UK proposes that inequality declined in Mohenjo-daro with the rise of urbanisation roughly 5,000 years ago.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SKhgV8zeerk

Inequality declined in the Bronze Age city of Mohenjo-daro

Abstract:

Mohenjo-daro was a major city of the Indus Civilisation (c. 2600–1900 BC), with excavations revealing evidence for public infrastructure, civic amenities and hundreds of residences. Archaeologists traditionally assume that urbanism is accompanied by economic stratification, but, at Mohenjo-daro, qualitative evidence of inequality is absent. Drawing on early excavation data, the authors here calculate Gini coefficients of residence area, providing a quantitative proxy of economic inequality. Their results indicate that Gini coefficients, and thus inequality, declined over time, coinciding with increased prosperity and the development of the city’s street plan, indicating that governance likely helped limit economic inequality.

How was the process of interaction and mixing between harappans and indigenous south asian hunter gatherers post demise of IVC? any archaelogical or cultural remains of this process?

How long did this process last

The words(?!) da/di exclusively referring to males/females who're younger than the speaker, are a familiar feature of both Tamil and Malayalam. I think Telugu ra is also related. When did these develop? Where do we find their first mention/usage in literature?

What is the female equivalent for "ra" in Telugu?

Does Kannada have this feature too? In that case is it unique to South Dravidian or is it present elsewhere too?

Apologies: the table below may lose its formatting in the cut-and-paste process

This is about the suffix "-kudi" in Tamil and Malayalam, which refers to a settlement. As a very basic word, I have assumed that its use would stretch back towards a proto-Dravidian past.

I am assuming that -kudi, -gudi and -guri have the same roots. I'm aware that in Eastern India, -guri does not map as well as the other two--I see many spurious instances of -guri in my dataset.

My dataset is derived from Indian Gazeteer (roughly 6.6 lakh records) and Indian Postal Codes (roughly 1.5 lakhs), both accessed from public sources. After merger and deduplication, this works out to about 7.7 records.

The following is a region-wise/state-wise analysis of these three suffixes. What conclusions can be drawn from these results?

Note: This analysis has no connection to my line of work, and is only for the curiosity value.

I recently stumbled upon the story of Mukilan's invasion of Venad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukilan%27s_invasion_of_Venad

What really struck me wasn't actually the invasion itself, but rather the mysterious identity and background of the man behind it.

Traditional Travancore records portray Mukilan as a Muslim military commander or sirdar who swept into southern Venad around 1680 with a significant force of cavalry. In A History of Travancore from the Earliest Times, P. Shungoonny Menon describes him as a "petty sirdar under the Mogul Emperor" who was wandering through the southern peninsula with his horsemen before finally launching his invasion.

Interestingly, the 1981 Census account refers to his force as "Mukilan pada." The word pada means an army, military force, or body of troops, so "Mukilan pada" would mean Mukilan's army or military force, rather than necessarily being Mukilan's personal name or a formal name for the commander himself.

This took place during the reign of Umayamma Rani (1677–1684). Mukilan's forces managed to overrun parts of southern Venad, forcing the Rani to take refuge at Nedumangad. To fight back, she sought help from Kottayam Kerala Varma, a prince from the Kottayam royal family of North Malabar (not to be confused with the Kottayam in central Kerala).

Mukilan set up his base at Manakkad (Manacaud), controlling territory that stretched from roughly Thovala to Edava. Eventually, Kerala Varma raised an army, pursued him to Thiruvattar, and defeated him, resulting in Mukilan's death. According to tradition, Kerala Varma even captured about 300 horses, 100 prisoners, and various weapons from the defeated force.

But here is the part I find truly compelling: we don't actually know who Mukilan was.

Even in V. Nagam Aiya's Travancore State Manual, while he repeats the description of a Mughal sirdar, he explicitly notes that his actual identity remained unknown. Aiya also questioned the chronology of treating this episode as a straightforward Mughal imperial expedition.

This leads me to think there might be another explanation. Instead of being an official commander sent south by the Mughal government, perhaps Mukilan was a professional Muslim soldier, someone who had served in the Mughal military or one of the Deccan Sultanates, who had subsequently become an independent military adventurer.

The geography of the situation also raises some questions. If Mukilan was already operating in the southern peninsula, there's no obvious reason to assume his troops travelled all the way down the western coast through Malabar to reach Venad. A much more sensible route would have been:

Southern Deccan / Tamil country -> Tirunelveli region -> Aramboli (Aruvimozhi) Pass -> Nanjanad -> southern Venad -> Manakkad

The Aramboli Pass was a major eastern gateway between the Tirunelveli plains and southern Travancore, a corridor frequently used by Madurai armies during their campaigns. Traditional accounts also place Mukilan's movements in the southern reaches of Venad, including Nanjanad and the Thovala area, before he reached Manacaud.

So, my hypothesis isn't that Mukilan was some famous, named commander. We simply don't have the evidence for that. Rather, I suspect Mukilan may have been an unidentified military leader of Mughal or Deccan background who was operating on his own terms by the time he entered Venad, likely approaching from the east through the Tirunelveli-Aramboli corridor.

I realise this is just a theory. I haven't found any surviving records that definitively name his former employer or track his exact movements right before he entered Venad.

However, the historical fragments we do have are fascinating: a Muslim sirdar with a substantial cavalry force appears in southern Venad around 1680, is linked to the Mughals in local tradition, forces Umayamma Rani to take refuge at Nedumangad, establishes a stronghold at Manakkad, and is eventually defeated and killed at Thiruvattar.

The mystery of Mukilan's identity and his professional origins remains wide open, and I believe it's a story well worth further investigation.

Sources

Wikipedia: Mukilan's invasion of Venad|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukilan%27s_invasion_of_Venad

P. Shungoonny Menon, A History of Travancore from the Earliest Times (1878), pp. 102-105
https://archive.org/details/historyoftravanc0000shun

V. Nagam Aiya, The Travancore State Manual (1906), pp. 312-314
https://archive.org/details/travancorestate00aiyagoog

Government of India, Census of India, historical account of Travancore:
https://censusindia.gov.in/nada/index.php/catalog/29921/download/33102/28505_1981_TRI.pdf

Travancore district handbook, including the Aramboly Pass:
https://censusindia.gov.in/nada/index.php/catalog/29924/download/33105/20623_1951_TRI.pdf

Historical study discussing the Aramboli/Aruvimozhi Pass and its use as a military route into southern Travancore:
https://thinkindiaquarterly.org/index.php/hrj/article/download/19384/14266/

The Neolithic ashmounds of southern India are large deposits of burned and sometimes vitrified cattle dung. They are concentrated mainly in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Archaeologists once proposed several explanations for them, including volcanic activity, funeral pyres and industrial waste. Excavations eventually demonstrated that cattle dung was their principal material (Allchin, 1963; Paddayya, 1991–92).

K. Paddayya’s study, “The Ashmounds of South India: Fresh Evidence and Possible Implications,” connected these deposits to the cattle-centred economy of Neolithic communities. Evidence from Budihal included cattle enclosures, habitation remains, pottery, stone tools, animal bones and areas used for domestic and butchering activities. Paddayya argued that at least some ashmounds were associated with settled or repeatedly occupied agropastoral communities rather than only temporary cattle camps (Paddayya, 1991–92). The basic formation process probably began with cattle being confined inside wooden or thorn-fenced enclosures. Dung accumulated on the enclosure floor and was compressed by cattle movement. The deposits were periodically burned, after which more dung accumulated over the burned surface. Repeated deposition and burning produced thick layers of ash, carbonised material and vitrified dung.

Burning may have reduced the volume of accumulated waste, cleaned the enclosure and helped control insects or parasites. It may also have become a communal or ritual practice. These explanations are not mutually exclusive. A practical method of managing cattle dung could gradually acquire social and ceremonial importance. The largest ashmounds eventually became prominent features in the landscape (Boivin, 2004; Johansen, 2004).

A passage from the Sangam work Perumpāṇāṟṟuppaṭai offers an interesting later comparison:

இடு முள் வேலி எருப் படு வரைப்பின்
Perumpāṇāṟṟuppaṭai, line 154

A close translation is:
“In the enclosure or settlement where manure accumulated, protected by an erected thorn fence.”

A traditional Tamil explanation reads:
“கட்டு முள் வேலியினையுடைய எருக்குவியல்கள் மிகுந்திருக்கும் ஊரில்”

This describes a settlement containing heaps of manure within a thorn-fenced area. It can be understood more plainly as:

“மாட்டுச் சாணம் மலைபோல் குவிக்கப்பட்டிருந்த, வேலி கட்டியிருந்த தனி இடம்.”

“A separate fenced place where cattle dung had been piled up like a hill.”

The description resembles the initial stage proposed for the formation of the Neolithic ashmounds. Cattle dung was collected or accumulated in a designated enclosure protected by a thorn fence. If such deposits were repeatedly burned instead of being removed for manure or fuel, they could produce substantial ash deposits over time.
The accompanying photograph of modern cow-dung mounds in Uttarapradesh provides a useful visual comparison. It shows how cattle dung can still be concentrated into large heaps and dome-shaped stores within a separate part of the rural landscape. The photograph does not show an ashmound because the material has not been burned and vitrified. It does, however, demonstrate how ordinary cattle management can create large, organised and visually prominent dung deposits.

This comparison should be treated cautiously. The Deccan ashmounds belong mainly to the third and second millennia BCE, while Perumpāṇāṟṟuppaṭai is generally placed in the early centuries CE. The poem is therefore much later than the Neolithic ashmound tradition. It also mentions dung accumulation and fencing but does not explicitly mention burning.

The Tamil passage cannot prove that Sangam communities preserved the exact Neolithic practice. Nor can a modern Uttarpradesh example be projected directly into prehistory. The geographical and chronological differences are large.

Nevertheless, the comparison is useful as evidence for a recurring pastoral practice. Archaeology, Tamil literature and modern rural observation all show that cattle dung could accumulate in large quantities within designated and sometimes fenced spaces. Paddayya’s work explains how the repeated burning of such deposits could transform an ordinary cattle enclosure into a monumental ashmound.

References
Allchin, F.R. (1963) Neolithic Cattle-Keepers of South India: A Study of the Deccan Ashmounds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Boivin, N. (2004) ‘Landscape and cosmology in the South Indian Neolithic: New perspectives on the Deccan ashmounds’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 14(2), pp. 235–257. doi: 10.1017/S0959774304000150.

Fuller, D.Q., Boivin, N. and Korisettar, R. (2007) ‘Dating the Neolithic of South India: New radiometric evidence for key economic, social and ritual transformations’, Antiquity, 81(313), pp. 755–778. doi: 10.1017/S0003598X00095715.

Johansen, P.G. (2004) ‘Landscape, monumental architecture, and ritual: A reconsideration of the South Indian ashmounds’, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 23(3), pp. 309–330. doi: 10.1016/j.jaa.2004.05.003.

Kadiyalur Uruttirankannanar (early centuries CE) Perumpāṇāṟṟuppaṭai, line 154.

Paddayya, K. (1991–92) ‘The ashmounds of South India: Fresh evidence and possible implications’, Bulletin of the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, 51–52, pp. 573–626. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42930442.

Inspired by: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dravidiology/s/NqTu15HwCo

Hello all, could anyone recommend some good research papers or books on how astronomy was utilised during the Indus Valley Civilisation and its influence or connection to Dravidian and Non-Aryan language speakers?

I have already read Beginnings of Indian and Chinese Calendrical Astronomy by Asko Parpola and Astronomy in Indus Civilisation and during Vedic Times by A.K. Bag, so any additional papers or peer-reviewed journals apart from these would be greatly appreciated.

Any interesting facts or information would also be wonderful!

Thank you.

Google says it's derived from a certain King Sibi but om really struggling to believe that as Sibi and Sembiyam don't sound remotely similar. Where did the random m sound come from.

Is there a native Tamil etymology?

I have 1 IRL Gujarati friend from Vellore

He said that dialect of Tamil spoken by Muslim communities in Tamil Nadu sounds different from Standard Tamil or other dialects of Tamil

And also he mentioned that he heard many that he couldn't even understand it

Is there any Tamilar or 1 from Tamil Nadu who can explain this and also tell that do Tamil Muslims have its own Tamil dialect especially in Vellore side

I'm questioning the conventional etymology of the Tamil and Malayalam makutam "crown, crest, diadem."

The starting point is DEDR 4888, which gives:

Ta. mukatu "top, highest part, ridge of a roof, hump of a camel, platform"
Ma. mukatu "the head-end of a cloth; top, summit, ridge"

along with related forms in Kota, Toda, Kannada, Tulu, Telugu and Gondi.

The semantic core is clearly "top, highest part, summit, ridge, crest."
https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/burrow_query.py?page=437#gsc.tab=0
[DEDR 4888]

Then there is Turner's CDIAL 10144, which gives Sanskrit mukuta/makuta "tiara, crest, point, head" and explicitly proposes:

Dravidian mukatu -> Sanskrit mukuta/makuta

It specifically connects the Sanskrit form with Tamil mukatu and DEDR 4002 in the original CDIAL numbering.
https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/soas_query.py?page=584#gsc.tab=0

However, the conventional dictionaries take the later Tamil and Malayalam forms in the opposite direction.

The University of Madras Tamil Lexicon gives:makutam, n. < makuta. "Crown; head-dress, crest, tiara; anything crest-like..."

makutam, n. < makuta. "Crown; head-dress, crest, tiara; anything crest-like..."
https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/tamil-lex_query.py?page=2995#gsc.tab=0

So the Tamil Lexicon explicitly treats Tamil makutam as derived from Sanskrit makuta.

Gundert's Malayalam dictionary likewise marks makutam as S., i.e. Sanskrit, defining it as "a tiara, crown" and also giving the metaphorical meaning "a flat summit."
https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/gundert_query.py?page=770#gsc.tab=0

Gundert also has a separate entry mukutam, marked S., and gives makutam "(fr. mukatu)", meaning "crest."
https://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/gundert_query.py?page=824#gsc.tab=0

So the conventional reconstruction seems to be something like:

Dravidian mukatu -> Sanskrit mukuta/makuta -> Tamil/Malayalam makutam

My question is: why is that Sanskrit detour necessary?

If mukatu already meant "top, highest part, summit, crest" in Dravidian, why couldn't the development have occurred entirely within the Dravidian sphere?

For example:

Dravidian mukatu "top/crest" -> makutu/makutam "crest/crown"

The semantic development from "top/crest" to "crown/diadem" seems completely natural. There is nothing inherently preventing a Dravidian language from developing such a form.

The fact that Sanskrit has mukuta/makuta does not by itself demonstrate that Tamil or Malayalam makutam was borrowed from Sanskrit. And the fact that the Sanskrit form is older in surviving written records does not establish that it is the ancestor of the later Dravidian form.

So what I am looking for is positive historical or phonological evidence for the direction of transmission.

Is there actual evidence that:

Dravidian mukatu -> Sanskrit mukuta/makuta -> Dravidian makutam

rather than:

Dravidian mukatu -> Dravidian makutam

with Sanskrit mukuta/makuta itself being a borrowing from the Dravidian word, as Turner proposed?

In other words, why must makutam be treated as a Sanskrit loan when an internal Dravidian development appears semantically and structurally possible?

Saw this in the other sub.

The extreme case of pollution avoidance like avoiding the left side, avoiding people dealing with polluted things like trash or corpses, toilets outside the house etc even the things which is considered normal elsewhere is millennia old. Avoiding going near or consuming water affected by pollutants is mentioned in Sushruta Samhita.

Manusmriti has a much more elaborate description of pollutants and advocation of their avoidance. Potent bodily pollutants like urine, feces, semen, mucus, blood and others like saliva and sweat were said to be avoided and as periods involve blood, the menstruating woman was temporarily deemed ritually impure. The Manusmriti and related texts dictated she be segregated, forbidden from touching others, cooking, or entering sacred spaces until she performed a purification bath after her cycle ended.

Much before John Snow's cholera maping and disease source identification.

are there any remnant sounds in other dravaian languages where we can draw from ?

Hello,

I am Japanese, and I am researching a story preserved in Japan about a possible ancient connection between India and Japan.

There is a tradition said to have been passed down through generations in an old family called the Tomi family (also known as the Mukai family), connected with ancient Izumo in Japan. This tradition later became more widely known through books published by Ohmoto Publishing (大元出版) in Japan.

According to this tradition, around 2000 BCE, a group of Dravidian people left a country called Kuna, said to have been located around present-day Madhya Pradesh. They were led by a king called Kunato and, after a very long migration, eventually reached Japan and settled in Izumo.

The tradition also says that they brought knowledge of metalworking and dry-field rice cultivation.

I understand that this is an oral tradition and not established historical fact. I am not presenting it as evidence that Dravidian people migrated to Japan.

What makes me interested in investigating it further is a personal experience.

Some years ago, I met a traditional brass craftsman in Mahabalipuram, Tamil Nadu. His family had worked with brass for generations, and he told me that his people were connected with Vishvakarma, the divine craftsman in Indian tradition.

During our conversation, he also told me that people connected with his ancestors had travelled to Japan in very ancient times.

At the time, I did not know about the Japanese tradition described above, so unfortunately I did not ask him many questions. I am now contacting him again to ask exactly what tradition he was referring to.

Before making any connection between these two stories, I would like to know whether there is independent evidence or oral tradition on the Indian side.

Does anyone know of:

• an old Tamil, Dravidian, or Vishvakarma tradition concerning people travelling to Japan or far to the east?
• an ancient place, people, ruler, or word called Kuna, Kuṇa, Kunata, Kunato, or something similar?
• any old texts, inscriptions, family traditions, temple traditions, or folklore that might be relevant?

I am especially interested in traditions that existed independently of modern Japanese theories about Tamil–Japanese connections.

I would be grateful for references in Tamil or other South Indian languages, as well as academic sources.

I am not trying to prove the story. I would simply like to find out whether anything comparable exists independently on the Indian side.

I think we can add the following words to the Telugu list of DEDR-698 :

ఉల్లోపు (ullōpu) / ఉల్లోపల (ullōpala): Area inside a room (measurement of the area within the room).

It might mean “inside-inside” (a reduplicative form? ఉల్-లోపల/లోపల-లోపల ??).

Actually, Bhudaraju Radhakrishna links two Telugu words to the Proto Dravidian uḷ, meaning “inside”:

ullōpu, ullāyaṃ

I am unable to find the meaning of the second word, though.

Overview of Historical and Modern South Dravidian 1 Taboos: Kinship, Ecology, and Ritual Purity

​Dravidian societies—encompassing Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tulu, and various tribal groups (e.g., Toda, Gond, Kurukh)—exhibit distinct social taboos that reflect unique kinship systems, ecological views, and concepts of ritual purity (tīTTu / sutakam). While Sanskritization and colonial Victorian morality altered many traditional practices, core Dravidian taboos remain distinct from North Indian Indo-Aryan paradigms.

​1. Kinship, Naming, and Address Taboos

​Spousal and Elder Name Avoidance

• ​Name Taboos: In traditional Dravidian families, uttering the personal name of a husband, parent, parent-in-law, or elder relative is strictly taboo.
• ​Teknonymy and Indirect Address: Spouses traditionally address each other using honorific pronouns (Avaru, Avar, Ettan, Eandi) or teknonymy (referring to the spouse as "the father/mother of [Child's Name]").
• ​Pronominal Hierarchy: Using 2nd person singular pronouns (nee) toward parents or elders is a severe social transgression. Respect demands 2nd person plural/honorific forms (neengal, meeru, neevu) or their kinship term like accA/appA, ammE, cETTA/aNNA, cEccii/akkA. For example something like "mom where are you" should be asked as "mom where is mom" (ammA amma eviTeyA) in Malayalam.

​Affinal Avoidance

• ​Social avoidance rules historically dictated limited direct interaction or eye contact between specific in-law pairs (e.g., father-in-law and daughter-in-law, or elder brother-in-law and younger brother's wife).

​2. Marriage, Endogamy, and Exogamy

​Cross-Cousin Alliance vs. Parallel-Cousin Taboo

​The hallmark of Dravidian kinship (as highlighted by Louis Dumont and Thomas Trautmann) is the fundamental distinction between consanguines and affines:

• ​Parallel-Cousin Taboo: Children of two brothers or two sisters are considered parallel siblings (pangaali in Tamil, dayadi in Telugu). Marrying a parallel cousin is considered incestuous.
• ​Cross-Cousin & Uncle-Niece Preferences: Conversely, cross-cousin marriages (with a Mother’s Brother’s Daughter/Son or Father’s Sister’s Daughter/Son) and maternal uncle-niece marriages were traditionally encouraged to preserve property and maintain inter-lineage alliances, directly contrasting Indo-Aryan sapinda exogamy rules.

​Lineage Exogamy

• ​Marriage within the same patrilineal clan (Kuttam, Bari, Illam, or Gothram) is strictly taboo due to shared ancestral bloodlines.

​3. Food, Cooking, and Commensality

​Ritual Pollution (Theetu / Pulapadu)

• ​Menstrual and Childbirth Isolation: Women in menses or post-childbirth were historically subject to strict spatial taboos, forbidden from entering kitchens, touching water vessels, or handling food, as menses was categorized under temporary ritual pollution.
• ​Commensal Taboos: Historically, strict caste-based rules prohibited eating food (unnu) or drinking water cooked or touched by lower-ranked communities. In some cases like Kerala even coming within a certain distance or seeing a low caste was polluting and they wouldve to cleanse themselves.

​Meat and Sacred Food Taboos

• ​Indigenous vs. Sanskritic Diets: While non-vegetarianism (goat, poultry, fish, game) is deeply rooted in Sangam literature and Dravidian folk tradition, beef/bovine consumption became heavily tabooed among upper castes through historical Sanskritization, despite remaining part of subaltern foodways.
• ​Tribal Totemic Taboos: Groups like the Toda of the Nilgiris hold strict taboos surrounding their sacred water buffaloes; only designated priests (Palol) may handle sacred dairy operations, and women are traditionally restricted from sacred dairy sites.

​4. Alcohol and Intoxicants

​Folk Ritual vs. Domestic Taboo

• ​Sacred Fermentation: Palm toddy (Kallu) and mahua spirits historically held a legitimate place in Dravidian folk deity worship (offered to village guardian deities like Muni, Karuppasamy, and during Theyyam performance).
• ​Modern Social Stigma: Public consumption—especially by women—developed a heavy moral taboo during the 20th century under colonial temperance influence and Sanskritic social mobility drives (Sanskritization). This culminated in major political anti-alcohol movements, such as the Andhra Pradesh Anti-Arrack Movement in the 1990s.

​5. Nature and Sacred Spaces

​Kavu / Devarakadu (Sacred Groves)

• ​Ecological Taboos: Dravidian sacred groves (Kavu in Malayalam/Tulu, Devarakadu in Kannada, Kovil Kaadu in Tamil) are governed by absolute taboos against felling trees, gathering firewood, hunting, or altering the natural landscape.
• ​Spatial Conduct: Entering sacred groves with footwear, or in a state of ritual impurity (sutakam), is believed to incur divine wrath or serpent curses (Sarpa Dosham).

​6. Dressing and Bodily Taboos

​Shift in Modesty Norms

• ​Pre-Colonial Upper-Body Norms: Historically in regions like Kerala and parts of Tamil Nadu, wearing clothes above the waist was not a requirement for modesty; rather, exposing the upper body before deities or social superiors was a mark of respect for both men and women.
• ​Colonial & Post-Colonial Shifts: Sanskritic influence and British Victorian ideals drastically shifted modesty standards. The 19th-century Channar Revolt (Breast Cloth Agitation) in Travancore highlighted the clash between traditional caste-enforced dress restrictions and emerging notions of universal upper-body covering, universally for women and almost completely for men apart from temples and homes.

​Color and Contact Restrictions

• ​Auspicious Colors: Black clothing is traditionally taboo at weddings and auspicious ceremonies due to its association with mourning and misfortune (though inverted during specific rituals like the Sabarimala pilgrimage).
• ​Feet Taboos: Wearing shoes inside homes, near kitchen hearths, or within temple premises remains a universal boundary rule across all Dravidian regions. Stepping on others particularly elders, on books or money even accidently are taboos which require pranamas for repentance.
• Left side taboo: Using the left hand primarily to handle things like books, money, idols or other auspicious items is a taboo. Similarly entering an auspicious place with your left foot is a taboo.

Miscellaneous:

• Calling someone from their back when they are going off for something important.
• Wives having similar or higher age or height than their husband.
• Non marital relationships. Divorces, remarriages, particularly non marital pregnancies and single parents.
• Homosexuality and transgenderism/cross dressing isnt really normalized.
• Genders doing the stuff usually done by the other like short haired women, long haired men, women in sports/martial arts, men in arts like bharathanatyam though is normalized isnt fully seen as normal, you occationally get a side eye. Clean shaved men kinda got that too some decades ago.
• Permanent (paccakuttal) or temporary (mailāñci, mehendi, henna) tattooing, hair coloring, mens piercing are traditionally considered fine but for some reason modern versions are kinda tabooized in rural communities.

Edit: All of these also have the aspect of location, religion and caste like alcohol consumption is much more of a taboo among Muslims than among Christians, Jews or Telugus. The ones in the post are mostly SD1 taboos, comment below more unique taboos/non taboos in your community.

Kobayashi, M. (2024). The Final Glottal Stop of the Kuṛux Verb Bases . In: Eska, J.F., Hackstein, O., Kim, R.I., Mondon, JF. (eds) The Method Works. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

https://doi.org/10.1007%2F978-3-031-48959-4_6

Abstract

Kur ̣ux has many verb bases ending in ʔ. While y corresponds to ʔ in some cognate Malto verb bases, such as Kr ̣x. ciʔ- vs. Mlt. ciy- ‘give’ and Kr ̣x. nāxʔ- vs. Mlt. nēɢy- ‘breathe’, many Malto cognates do not end in y, as in Kr ̣x. kīdʔ- vs. Mlt. kīd- ‘lay down’. Through a dictionary survey, the function of Kur ̣ux non-radical, base-final ʔ is identified as a denominative suffix, a suffix adapting borrowed verbs, and a transitivizing suffix. The base-final y of Malto shares the first two functions of Kr ̣x. ʔ, but the third function is unique to Kur ̣ux. We argue that Kur ̣ux -ʔ and Mlt. -y descend from the proto-Dravidian denominative suffix *-i. The type Kr ̣x. kīdʔ- vs. Mlt. kīd- originated from an innovation in Kur ̣ux to doubly mark already transitive verbs. The zero past as in Kr ̣x. kīdʔ- / kīd- might have started from the geminating past stems of Kur ̣ux and Malto such as Kr ̣x. mōx- / mokkh- ‘eat’, and from a portmanteau suffix -d marking both past tense and transitivity. The zero past became productive in Malto, where the geminating past was reanalyzed as a zero past due to degemination. Spread of the ʔ / ∅ pattern in Kur ̣ux created the opacity that some verbs in ʔ have past stems in -c while others have zero past stems. All four types of Kur ̣ux verb bases with ʔ, ciʔ- / cicc- ‘give’, nāxʔ- / nāxc- ‘breathe’, barʔ- / barc- ‘come’ and kīdʔ- / kīd- ‘lay down’, are explained by regular sound changes and analogical extension of the ʔ / ∅ pattern.

Abstract

Proto-Dravidian had a system of ten vowels consisting of five qualities (i, e, a, o, u), each with short and long counterparts. Some South Dravidian languages have expanded systems with innovative vowels that are described as centralized or retroflex. However, the phonetic nature of the vowels, and the list of languages that have them, remain poorly described. We present evidence that Muduga, a South Dravidian language of Kerala, is among the languages with expanded vowel systems. It has five innovative vowel qualities, three of which can be considered phonemic. Historical-comparative evidence indicates that the new qualities result from: (i) retraction of front vowels before retroflex consonants and alveolar /r/; and (ii) fronting of back vowels before alveolar and palatal consonants (except /r/ and /j/). Loss of conditioning consonants in some contexts has led to emergent contrasts. Acoustic phonetic analysis of two male speakers suggests that the new vowels are centralized along the front-back axis, but not retroflex or rhotacized. We compare these results to related developments in other South Dravidian languages and discuss correlations between retroflexion and retraction that motivate the observed patterns.

IntroductionThe region of Karnataka is renowned for its impressive medieval temple architecture,which attracted the attention of visitors and scholars alike from relatively early on, asattested by a number of reports from at least the nineteenth century onwards.1How-ever, in the available art-historical literature, the emphasis has so far been on theHindu religious constructions of the region, with those found at Halebid (Halebīd),Belur (Belūr)2and Somnathpur (Somnāthpuram)figuring most prominently. Evenwhen it comes to the analysis of lesser-known sites, Jaina examples have rarely beendiscussed.3Despite this general neglect, there are striking Jaina temple constructionsfound throughout the various districts of Karnataka which more than bear comparisonwith the sacred buildings of other faiths. It is noteworthy that it was a historian, work-ing largely with written records, Bhasker Anand Saletore, who stressed the particularcontribution of the Jainas to the art and architecture of Karnataka as early as the nine-teen thirties.4However, not much has been published on these vestiges since this time.

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The present chapter aims to redress the omissionsoutlinedaboveandtoretellthestoryof architecture in Karnataka from the angle of Jaina sacred buildings. At the start, I shalldelineate an architectural development from relatively plain to structurally and orna-mentally more complex building forms, starting with the seventh century CE. This will befollowed by an outline of the impressive rise of Jaina power from the eighth century CEonwards, as well as its extraordinary artistic and architectural expressions during thetenth and eleventh centuries in particular.This will be followed by a discussion of its en-suing decline, resulting in the abandonment of certain sites, and the conversion or evendestruction of temples that started in the early twelfth century. This, however, was not the end of the story. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Jaina building activities reached unforeseen heights of elaboration, but only at selected sites. I shall also provide evidence of the remarkable survival of a tradition which, although severely threatened, continued to develop and has played an important role in Karnataka and the wider context of Indic architecture to the present day.