tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2953467895541511190.post4140048383661039053..comments2017-10-19T00:28:54.153-07:00Comments on The Pursuit of Truth: The Elamites/ Sri lankan Tamils?illusionshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10961504533263842795noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2953467895541511190.post-47364619431462514952009-05-08T11:09:00.000-07:002009-05-08T11:09:00.000-07:00Kumari Kandam (குமரிக்கண்டம் Kumarikkaṇṭam) is the...Kumari Kandam (குமரிக்கண்டம் Kumarikkaṇṭam) is the name of a sunken landmass said to have been located to the south of present-day Kanyakumari District at the southern tip of India in the Indian Ocean. The legend assigns the continent and its final submergence an antiquity ranging in tens of thousands of years.[1][2][3][4]<br /><br />It is a founding myth for the origin of Tamils found in Tamil literature datable to the 10th century CE.<br /><br />The Legend in Tamil Literature<br /><br />There are scattered references in Sangam literature, such as Kalittokai 104, to how the sea took the land of the Pandiyan kings, upon which they conquered new lands to replace those they had lost.[5] There are also references to the rivers Pahruli and Kumari, that are said to have flowed in a now-submerged land.[6] The Silappadhikaram, a 5th century epic, stating that the "cruel sea" took the Pandiyan land that lay between the rivers Pahruli and the many-mountained banks of the Kumari, to replace which the Pandiyan king conquered lands belonging to the Chola and Chera kings (Maturaikkandam, verses 17-22). Adiyarkkunallar, a 12th century commentator on the epic, explains this reference by saying that there was once a land to the south of the present-day Kanyakumari , which stretched for 700 kavatams from the Pahruli river in the north to the Kumari river in the south.<br /><br />This land was divided into 49 nadu, or territories, which he names as seven coconut territories (elutenga natu), seven Madurai territories (elumaturai natu), seven old sandy territories (elumunpalai natu), seven new sandy territories (elupinpalai natu), seven mountain territories (elukunra natu), seven eastern coastal territories (elukunakarai natu) and seven dwarf-palm territories (elukurumpanai natu). All these lands, he says, together with the many-mountained land that began with KumariKollam, with forests and habitations, were submerged by the sea.[6]. Two of these Nadus or territories were supposedly parts of present-day Kollam and Kanyakumari districts.<br /><br />None of these texts name the land "Kumari Kandam" or "Kumarinadu", as is common today. The only similar pre-modern reference is to a "Kumari Kandam" (written குமரிகண்டம், rather than குமரிக்கண்டம் as the legendary land is called in modern Tamil), which is named in the mediaeval Tamil text "Kantapuranam" either as being one of the nine continents,[7], or one of the nine divisions of India and the only region not to be inhabited by barbarians.[8] 19th and 20th Tamil revivalist movements, however, came to apply the name to the legendary territories described in Adiyarkkunallar's commentary to the Silappadhikaram.[9] They also associated this territory with the legend of the Tamil Sangams, and said that the fabled cities of southern Madurai and Kapatapuram where the first two Sangams were said to be held were located on Kumari Kandam.<br /><br />Government of Tamilnadu, in 1991 claimed to have deciphered the Indus script as Tamil, following the methodology recommended by his teacher Devaneya Pavanar, presenting the following timeline (cited after Mahadevan 2002):<br /><br /> ca. 200,000 to 50,000 BC: evolution of "the Tamilian or Homo Dravida",<br /> ca. 200,000 to 100,000 BC: beginnings of the Tamil language<br /> 50,000 BC: Kumari Kandam civilisation<br /> 20,000 BC: A lost Tamil culture of the Easter Island which had an advanced civilisation<br /> 16,000 BC: Lemuria submerged<br /> 6087 BC: Second Tamil Sangam established by a Pandya king<br /> 3031 BC: A Chera prince in his wanderings in the Solomon Island saw wild sugarcane and started cultivation in Kumari Kandam.<br /> 1780 BC: The Third Tamil Sangam established by a Pandya king<br /> 7th century BC: Tolkappiyam (the earliest known extant Tamil grammar)Adiyaarku-adiyenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15248807772688878968noreply@blogger.com