The Lost world of Kumari Kandam
We already know about many legendary cities that today’s world has lost in time. Some of those were the city of Atlantis, and the city of Dwaraka that is mentioned in Mahabharata. But out of all these, there existed one huge land mass to the south of today’s Indian peninsula extending from Kanyakumari in the north, and its sides touching as far to the west as Madagascar and as far to the east as Australia. This huge continent of the Tamil people was called Kumari Kandam or the Lemuria continent that was swallowed by the seas, and eventually lost forever.Hundreds of thousand years ago, continents started drifting, and different continents were formed. And after a much long time, the earliest human beings were born on the earth about 400,000 years ago.
During the end of the last Ice age, earth’s temperature started rising, large icy masses and glaciers started melting, and thus sea levels started rising. During this period, 12000 years ago, India’s Dravidian peninsula was swallowed by the ever rising seas. Various oceanographic researches have shown that the sea level in the Indian peninsula has risen by 100 meters within the past 14,500 years. There had been three major episodes of sea level fluctuations resulting in the submergence of the Kumari continent which existed to the south of Kanya Kumari (About 14,500 years ago, Sri Lanka was connected with Peninsular India!)The area had been ruled by the Pandya kings, and there are lots of scattered literary evidences to this lost land of the Tamils.
As per Adiyarkunallar, a huge landmass extending from Kanyakumari to a distance of 700 kavatams (unknown, obsolete unit) got sunken in the sea. During this civilization, Kumari Kandam land was divided into 49 territories (nadu). It had mountain ranges, and also had two main rivers- Pahruli and Kumari.
The earliest civilization that we know of today is the Sumerian civilization established in Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq) around 4000 BC. After this were the Egyptian civilization and then the Indus valley civilization But the Tamil civilization around Kumari Kandam had been much earlier than this, which would put it to the first in the time scale of civilization of mankind. What is even more interesting is that, many world-renowned researchers also claim to have deciphered the Indus script to be Tamil! As per Nakkirar’s Iraiyanaar Akaporul the three Tamil Sangams (Academies of Tamil poets) functioned for 9990 odd years!
However, very sadly, all that is extant today is the Tamil literature works from the third Sangam. Everything else is lost in the sea, and in time; the people of the civilization were swallowed by the seas. It’s a tragedy of a huge magnitude. The quality of life of the ancient Tamils in Kumari Kandam should have been extraordinarily sublime. Thus naming of India as subcontinent turned out to have a greater meaning . Within a few years , travel to submerged parts of “Kumari kandam” or “Lumeria” should be possible , scientists hope.
By: Vivek Ravin
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