nIram

Source: TW

sadA-nIrA is a river name appearing in the shatapatha brAhmaNa and texts coming after it (e.g., itihAsa-purANa). It is not found in any early layer of Vedic. Hence, it does seem the nIrA suffix is derived from a Dravidian word for water.

By most reckonings it is an Eastern river and indicates that the Indo-Aryans were already moving eastwards across the Gangetic doab. This, taken with the absence of reliable Harappan loans indicative of a Dravidian language, suggests that

1. Harappan was not Dravidian (unlike a wildly popular view)
2. Early Aryan-Dravidian encounters happened in an Eastern locale and not in the NW.
3. In turn #2 suggests that a branch of Dravidian had moved from a more southern locale towards the Northeast by the time the Aryans reached those regions. In recent times Malto was a Dravidian tongue still attested in those regions. Krishnamurti reconstructs *nIr as a PrDr; however, I’m unaware of it being attested in Malto.

Brahui is on the same branch as Kurukh and Malto. It has no old Iranian and few old IA loans, and is mostly influenced by Western Iranian. Hence it suggests that it was the western branch of the movement leading to the North Drs. This is best explained by a movement from a more southern urheimat of Dr towards the north that then branched in both Eastern and western directions.(5)