The term Dravidian is to signify the language of Southern India and they are-Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kanarese, Tulu, Gond and the Kru(Khond).Strictly speaking, the term 'Dravida’ denotes the Tamil country alone(including Malayalam).
TAMIL LANGUAGE-its origin
Agastya is an eminent personage who is venerated deeply in the South as the first preceptor of Tamil Science and literature of the primitive Dravidians. It is believed that he had himself received his knowledge and inspiration from God Subrahmanya, the fountain-head of all knowledge in Tamil. It is also said that, at the command of God Siva, Agastya proceeded to the South as far as Cape Comorin and took up his abode at the Podigai hills. Although he became the author of the tamil language and compiled the first tamil grammer(Agattiyam).We are not to suppose that he was the author of the Tamil alphabet.
Just as Vyasa has been regarded in North India as a great authority in Sanskrit, Agastya has an equally distinguished place in the South. He is in fact called the "Tamil muni or the Tamilian Sage." He wielded very high influence which he acquired at the court of kula sekhara(according to the tradition of the first pandian King);and numerous are the elementary treatise which he composed for the enlightenment of his royal disciple; and the one with the grammatical principles of language systematically arranged has naturally acquired high renown. He is mythologically represented in India as the Canopus, the brightest star in the extreme southern sky and is worshipped near Cape Comorin as Agattisvara. By the majority of the orthodox Hindus, he is even now believed to be still alive though invisible to ordinary eyes, somewhere on the fine conical mountains commonly called the "Agastya's hills" from which the sacred river of Tamraparni takes its rise.
The territorial limits
The great plain of the Karnatic is at present the seat of the Tamil race, In some of the Tamil works it is said that the Tamil country south of Cape Comorin was originally a Continent which is believed to have been submerged in the Indian ocean. Even the seats of the first two great Tamil academics that existed at different periods; prior to the formation of the Madura Sangam, are believed alike to have been submerged in the sea; and thus the most precious gems of Tamil Literature have been irrecoverably lost.
Tamil Literature - its history
The earliest literature so far as it is known, is traced by Dr. Caldwell to the 8th century A.D. The Madura Sangam then known as the last academy, and founded mostly for the cultivation of the Tamil language exercised as great an authority over the Tamil literature as the Academy of Paris had done in its palmy days for France; but it came to a sudden end and several are the stories told and different are the explanations offered for the same and they are all far from being satisfactory. What ever it be, the fact remains that it had to encounter severe opposition from the races that came after, especially from the Muhammadans who were responsible for the loss of the valuable gems of the Tamil literature. Tamil had in fact suffered several changes due to the influence of the Aryans, the Jains, and the Buddhists with the result that the Tamil section subsequently directed its attention more to Sanskrit and came at all events, to neglect the cultivation of their own literature.
Thus the old system was subverted; but a new impulse was given to the study of Tamil by the literar activities of the Jaina sect through which Tamil became substantially enriched. It borrowed from Sanskrit a few letters more for convenience rather than out of necessity. Though it is not within the scope of this work or its purpose to enter into the details of comparative philology, it is considered essential to deal with certain aspects that have e contributed in a way towards the compilation of this work. Almost all the languages of India have been considerably enriched by Sanskrit; and sanskrit has like-wise borrowed several words from Tamil especially from works on Medicine, Philosophy, Alchemy, etc ., which were composed mainly inverses, as for instance dealt with in this work are purely Tamil works but borrowed and assimilated in Sanskrit as ‘Ida’, ‘Pingala’' and 'Sushumna'; as also the word Shadadharam in Sanskrit and Sushupti. Dr. Caldwell in his Dravidian Comparative Grammer, instances 31 words taken into Sanskrit from the dravidian tongues. He is also of opinion that Sanskrit derived its cerebral consonants from the Dravida. It is evident that the early writings on Tamil Medicine are quite independent of Sanskrit even as its language and literature are.