Dravidian peoples

The Dravidian peoples, Dravidian-speakers or Dravidians, are a collection of ethnolinguistic groups native to South Asia who speak Dravidian languages. There are around 250 million native speakers of Dravidian languages. Telugus form the largest Dravidian ethnic group, whilst Tamilians, Kannadigas and Malayalis form the vast-majority of the rest of Dravidian speakers. Dravidian speakers form the majority of the population of South India and are natively found in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. The four languages of these ethnic groups along with Urdu constitute the official languages of South India. Dravidian peoples are also present in Singapore, Mauritius, Malaysia, France, South Africa, Myanmar, East Africa, the Caribbean, and the United Arab Emirates through recent migration.

Proto-Dravidian may have been spoken in the Indus civilization, suggesting a "tentative date of Proto-Dravidian around the early part of the third millennium BCE", after which it branched into various Dravidian languages. South Dravidian I (including pre-Tamil) and South Dravidian II (including pre-Telugu) split around the eleventh century BCE, with the other major branches splitting off at around the same time.

The origins of the Dravidians are a "very complex subject of research and debate". They are regarded as indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, but may have deeper pre-Neolithic roots from Western Asia, specifically from the Iranian plateau. Their origins are often viewed as being connected with the Indus Valley Civilisation, hence people and language spread east and southwards after the demise of the Indus Valley Civilisation in the early second millennium BCE, some propose not long before the arrival of Indo-Aryan speakers, with whom they intensively interacted. Though some scholars have argued that the Dravidian languages may have been brought to India by migrations from the Iranian plateau in the fourth or third millennium BCE or even earlier, reconstructed proto-Dravidian vocabulary suggests that the family is indigenous to India.

Genetically, the ancient Indus Valley people were composed of a primarily Iranian hunter-gatherers (or farmers) ancestry, with varying degrees of ancestry from local hunter-gatherer groups. The modern-day Dravidian-speakers are primarily composed of Ancient South Indian hunter-gatherer ancestry and varying levels of Indus Valley Civilisation ancestry, but also carry a small portion of Western Steppe Herder ancestry and may also have additional contributions from local hunter-gatherer groups.

The third century BCE onwards saw the development of many great empires in South India like Pandya, Chola, Chera, Pallava, Satavahana, Chalukya, Kakatiya and Rashtrakuta. Medieval South Indian guilds and trading organisations like the "Ayyavole of Karnataka and Manigramam" played an important role in the Southeast Asia trade, and the cultural Indianisation of the region.

Dravidian visual art is dominated by stylised temple architecture in major centres, and the production of images on stone and bronze sculptures. The sculpture dating from the Chola period has become notable as a symbol of Hinduism. The Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple located in Indian state of Tamil Nadu is often considered as the largest functioning Hindu temple in the world. The temple is built in Dravidian style and occupies an area of 156 acres (631,000 m²).