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Most people are familiar with the story of Atlantis, the legendary sunken
city as described by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Till this day,
opinion is still divided as to whether this story should be understood
literally or taken merely as a morality tale.
The term Lemuria has its origins in the latter part of the 19 th century.
The English geologist Philip Sclater was puzzled by the presence of lemur
fossils in Madagascar and India but not in mainland Africa and the Middle
East. Thus, in his 1864 article entitled The Mammals of Madagascar,
Sclater proposed that Madagascar and India were once part of a larger
continent, and named this missing landmass Lemuria. Sclaters theory
was accepted by the scientific community of that period as the
explanation of the way lemurs could have migrated from Madagascar to
India or vice versa in ancient times.
With the emergence of the modern concepts of continental drift and plate
tectonics, however, Sclaters proposition of a submerged continent was no
longer tenable. Yet, the idea of a lost continent refused to die, and some
still believe that Lemuria was an actual continent that existed in the past.
One such group is the Tamil nationalists. The term Kumari Kandam first
appeared in the 15 th century Kanda Puranam, the Tamil version of the
Skanda Puranam. Yet, stories about an ancient land submerged by the
Indian Ocean have been recorded in many earlier Tamil literary works.
According to the stories, there was a portion of land that was once ruled
by the Pandiyan kings and was swallowed by the sea. When narratives
about Lemuria arrived in colonial India, the country was going through a
period when folklore was beginning to permeate historic knowledge as
facts. As a result, Lemuria was quickly equated with Kumari Kandam.
The story of Kumari Kandam is not regarded as just a story, but seems to
be laden with nationalistic sentiments. It has been claimed that the
Pandiyan kings of Kumari Kandam were the rulers of the whole Indian
continent, and that Tamil civilisation is the oldest civilisation in the world.
When Kumari Kandam was submerged, its people spread across the world
and founded various civilisations, hence the claim that the lost continent
was also the cradle of human civilisation.
So, how much truth is there in the story of Kumari Kandam? According to
researchers at Indias National Institute of Oceanography, the sea level
was lower by 100 m about 14,500 years ago and by 60 m about 10,000
years ago. Hence, it is entirely possible that there was once a land bridge
connecting the island of Sri Lanka to mainland India. As the rate of global
warming increased between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago, the rising sea
levels resulted in periodic flooding. This would have submerged prehistoric
settlements that were located around the low-lying coastal areas of India
and Sri Lanka. Stories of these catastrophic events may have been
transmitted orally from one generation to another and finally written down
as the story of Kumari Kandam.
Source: ancient-origins.net