The Tamils of South India by J. S. James

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 20, 1907

The Tamils of South India

By J. S. James

MARCH 15 I arrived in South India, my future field of labor, where my family had preceded me by two months. My coming to this part of India was for the purpose of working for the Tamils. A few words concerning this interesting people would not be out of place.

The languages of South India are of Dravidian origin. It is not known exactly when the Dravidians entered India, but the latest date is given in the fourth century. They come from the pure Aryan stock that entered India from Central Asia, by the northwest passage of the Himalaya Mountains. They made their way south, and scattered over the southern peninsula, where they are at present represented by twelve different tongues, six of which are cultivated languages. Chief among these six is the Tamil, which I am now studying. It is the earliest cultivated of the Dravidian dialects, and is considered the most copious, and contains the greatest number of ancient forms. About forty per cent of the language is borrowed from the Sanskrit.

Tamil is spoken from Nellore, fifty miles north of Madras, to beyond Cape Comorin on the south, and westward to the Ghats. This is an area of sixty thousand square miles, or larger than that of the State of Illinois. This contains sixteen million Tamil-speaking people alone, to say nothing of the millions speaking other important tongues, such as Telugu, Kanarese, and Malayalam. About one third of the population of the island of Ceylon speak Tamil, and it is spoken also in parts of Burma and the East Indies. The latest census places the entire Tamil-speaking race at eighteen millions, or more people than are found in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. It is for these people that we expect to devote our lives, that they may have the third angel’s message in this generation. Think of a lone man and his family being set apart to work for a nation of people! Some of our workers in the home field are greatly burdened if asked to conduct a tent effort in some little village hamlet alone. Dear brethren, the race is not equal. These fields are calling for the gospel, and our prayers join their cries daily, that God will send more means and laborers into these needy fields. I am hoping that some good brother and his wife can be found to come and join us in this field. We believe the Lord will lay the burden on some of our dear brethren at home not only to give of their means, but to give their lives also for the needy millions of South India.

Shortly after arriving home, I was fortunate in securing the services of a first-class munshi (teacher). He is regarded in South India as an authority on Tamil, having contributed several works on education, in that language. He is a heathen, a high-caste Brahman, all of which is considered much to our advantage in getting hold of the real language. At the present writing (March 31) he has been teaching us about two weeks, and we are now able to read and write and pronounce two hundred and sixty different characters and combinations of the alphabet. Mrs. James is taking full work with me, and we endeavor to devote six hours each day to hard study. We are now reading in the first reader. This may sound simple, but it is necessary for one to begin at the bottom, and build up, in learning one of these languages, if he desires to translate and speak it intelligently.

The Tamil people are a very industrious race. They have been styled the Greeks or Scotch of the East. They are the least superstitious and most persevering of the Hindus. The majority of the coolies on the plantations of Ceylon are Tamils, and the majority of the money-making classes in Colombo belong to this people. The greater number of the domestic servants of the Europeans and of the camp followers in every part of the Madras Presidency are Tamils. They are noted for having built the largest temples above ground. Christianity has made encouraging progress among them, and they seem to yield quite readily to Western effort and influence. Other denominations have self-supporting churches among them, a thing very unusual in India.

Everything seems to clearly indicate that the time has come to take the message of our Lord’s soon coming to this people. As soon as I am able to do something with the language, I expect to visit the Tinnevelly district, where there is at present a community of five hundred native Christians who are keeping the Sabbath, and observing other features of present truth in a crude form. These people speak the Tamil language.

My family and I are enjoying the best of health, and our courage in the work was never better. We ask an interest in the prayers of our people in the home field, that our work in South India among this people may be blessed of God.

J. S. JAMES. Bangalore, Mysore, India.