Drāviḍa. The name of a people of India, the Dravidians, and also of their language, which eventually was developed into Tamil. A thousand years or more before the Aryans arrived in India the northwest was occupied by a darkskinned people, the proto-Dravidians. It was they who traded with Western Asia and later with the Roman Empire, selling ivory, peacocks, and spices (see I Kings 10.22 and II Chronicles 9.21). They gradually moved to the south of India.

Geddes MacGregor, Dictionary of Religion and Philosophy, New York: Paragon House, 1989