(J. M. M. D.; R. J.)

DRAUPADI, in Hindu legend, the daughter of Drupada, king of Panchala,
and wife of the five Pandava princes. She is an important character in
the _Mahabharata_.

DRAVE, or DRAVA (Ger. _Drau_, Hung. _Drava_, Lat. _Dravus_), one of the
principal right-bank affluents of the Danube, flowing through Austria
and Hungary. It rises below the Innichner Eck, near the Toblacher Feld
in Tirol, at an altitude of a little over 4000 ft., runs eastward, and
forms the longest longitudinal valley of the Alps. The Drave has a total
length of 450 m., while the length of its Alpine valley to Marburg is
150 m., and to its junction with the Mur 250 m. Owing to its great
extent and easy accessibility the valley of the Drave was the principal
road through which the invading peoples of the East, as the Huns, the
Slavs and the Turks, penetrated the Alpine countries. The Drave flows
through Carinthia and Styria, and enters Hungary near Friedau, where up
to its confluence with the Danube, at Almas, 14 m. E. of Esseg, it forms
the boundary between that country and Croatia-Slavonia. At its mouth the
Drave attains a breadth of 1055 ft. and a depth of 20 ft. The Drave is
navigable for rafts only from Villach, and for steamers from Barcs, a
distance of 95 m. The principal affluents of the Drave are: on the left
the Isel, the Gurk, the Lavant, and the largest of all, the Mur; and on
the right the Gail and the Drann.

DRAVIDIAN (Sanskrit _Dravida_), the name given to a collection of Indian
peoples, and their family of languages[1] comprising all the principal
forms of speech of Southern India. Their territory, which also includes
the northern half of Ceylon, extends northwards up to an irregular line
drawn from a point on the Arabian Sea about 100 m. below Goa along the
Western Ghats as far as Kolhapur, thence north-east through Hyderabad,
and farther eastwards to the Bay of Bengal. Farther to the north we find
Dravidian dialects spoken by small tribes in the Central Provinces and
Chota Nagpur, and even up to the banks of the Ganges in the Rajmahal
hills. A Dravidian dialect is, finally, spoken by the Br[=a]h[=u][=i]s
of Baluchistan in the far north-west. The various Dravidian languages,
with the number of speakers returned at the census of 1901, are as
follows:--

Tamil 17,494,901
Malay[=a]lam 6,022,131
Kanarese 10,368,515
Tulu 535,210
Kodagu