The Lost Tamil Continent of

KUMARI KANDAM

Dr Uday Dokras

INCORPORATING an article on RAMATHA city of RAM

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The Lost Tamil Continent of KUMARI KANDAM
Dr. Uday Dokras
INCORPORATING an ARTICLE IN ATLANTIS

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 The Lost Tamil Continent
Lemuria or kumari kandam
Dr Uday Dokras PhD SWEDEN
Introduction:

In an article in the Los Angeles Times. April 4, 1882 titled "A Submerged
Continent".. Ignatius Donnelly pointed out that in a recently published work
defended the story story that a continent known among the ancients as
Atlantis was sunk in the Atlantic Ocean by an earthquake. Similar continent is
the Tamil Continent Kumari Kandam.Lemuria is the name of a hypothetical
"lost land" variously located in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is said in Tamil
legend to have been civilised for over 20,000 years, with its population
speaking Tamil. The concept of Lemuria has been rendered obsolete by modern
understanding of plate tectonics. The Tamil people, also known as Tamilar or
simply Tamils are a Dravidian ethno-linguistic race that spoke and speak
Tamil.
Lemuria or kumari kandam was a part of continent which was in earlier times,
the people in the land was known to be Dravidian, Dravidam, Dramica, Tramil,
now known be tamilians. The aboriginals of african naga caste group people.
This has been fixed as 1,00,000 years old. From the Island of Moo called
Lemuria, which was located near Indonesia about 2.5 lakhs years ago, people
regularly moved out to Atlantis in Mexican Sea and Kumari Kandam in South
Tamil Nadu, about 1,00,000 years ago due to tsunami. The term "Lemuria" was
first coined by the British zoologist Philip Lutley Sclater in 1864 (Sclater 1864).

According to de Camp, there is no real scientific evidence for any lost

continents whatsoever. The most famous lost continent is Atlantis. Atlantis,
like Hyperborea and Thule, is ultimately derived from ancient Greek geographic
speculation and possibly memories of the Minoan eruption of the Thera
volcano.

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A submerged continent or sunken continent is a region of continental crust,
extensive in size but mainly undersea. The terminology is used by
some paleogeologists and geographers in reference to some landmasses (none of which
is as large as any of the generally recognized continents).The definition of this term is
unclear. If continental fragments and microcontinents smaller than
2,500,000 km2 (970,000 sq mi), which is approx. one third of the area of mainland
Australia, are excluded, then Zealandia (approx. 4,900,000 km2 (1,900,000 sq mi))
would be the only geological feature which can be classified as a submerged continent.
Other notable submerged landmasses include Beringia, Doggerland, the Kerguelen
Plateau, Mauritia, Sahul, and Sunda.
Submerged continents have been sought and speculated about in regard to a possible
"lost continent" underwater in the Atlantic Ocean.[1][2] There was also a search in the
1930s for Lemuria, thought to have been a submerged continent between the Indian
and African coasts

But when we take more specifications, this group is known to be semites and hamites.
This tamil people have semolhi as mother tongue which was derived from noah son
shem, where shem and generation from akkadian and persian gene of eber which said
to be hebrew nowadays.

For information Indian Aryan from upper part has Sanskrit as main. which comes
from tamil and persian spoken language.

So this kumari kandam was destroyed by climatic conditions in the period of

magnetic field cycles in earth rotation as per researchers. As we go through
there was certain book which contained information of 10 to 16 lakhs of people
may have been dead in this continent, which more than 700 cities. If a
possibility of tsunami today up to 45m height. There was time people had to
migrate and trade from one place to another.

We can see by research that the pandian kingdom people also lived in border of
spain in place called catalonia. And the people nowadays in region of india
called tamilnadu does not know why they hang chank (sangu)shells in the
houses. And why people do not sleep with legs in the direction towards south.
The famous Court Case involving The Lost Continent
‘Reply on plea to trace Kumari Kandam’
The litigant, V Narayanamoorthy of Dindigul, submitted that the Kumari Kandam is
a submerged continent that is located to the South of Kanniyakumari and extends
till Australia in the East.
By Express News Service

MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court sought response from the
Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking
direction to conduct underwater archaeological excavation to find out 'Kumari
Kandam'.

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The litigant, V Narayanamoorthy of Dindigul, submitted that the Kumari Kandam is
a submerged continent that is located to the South of Kanniyakumari and extends
till Australia in the East and Madagascar in the South.

He cited various Tamil classical literature, including Silappathikaram, to prove the

existence of Kumari Kandam. He also claimed that the Russian Academy of Science
had found that nearly 5,000 years ago, a crater named 'Burckle Crater' fell down
into the Indian Ocean, resulting in the submerging of the Kumari Kandam. He
wanted Areceological Survey of India (ASI) to trace the submerged continent.

A Bench of N Kirubakaran and B Pugalendhi sought response from ASI in this

regard. They also decided to rope in a researcher, one Orissa Balu who is the
litigant's friend, to assist the court.

The judges also issued notice on two more PILs filed by a law student, K
Pushpavanam, and Thoothukudi resident S Kamaraj. While Pushpavanam sought a
series of directions for proper maintenance of archaeological monuments in Tamil
Nadu and to create an ASI Circle in Thoothukudi, Kamaraj wanted direction to
conduct archaeological excavation at Athur river bed in Tiruchendur.
Indian Express Newspaper- Published: 29th October 2020 11:59 AM | Last
Updated: 29th October 2020 11:59 AM |

Kumari kandam (lost land of Tamil): Based on scientific Proofs Kindle

Edition-by Dhanraj Subbiah (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

5
 CHAPTER I
The Tamil people

The Tamil people, also known as Tamilar (Tamil: தமிழர், in the singular
or தமிழர்கள் , Tamiḻarkaḷ in the plural), or simply Tamils are
a Dravidian ethno-linguistic group who trace their ancestry to the South
Indian state of Tamil Nadu, union territory of Puducherry and to Sri Lanka.
Tamils constitute 5.9% of the population in India (concentrated mainly in Tamil
Nadu and Puducherry), 15% in Sri Lanka, 10% in Mauritius, 7%
in Malaysia and 5% in Singapore. Tamils, with a population of around 76
million and with a documented history stretching back over 2,000 years, are
one of the largest and oldest extant ethnolinguistic groups in the world.

From the 4th century BC, urbanisation as well as mercantile activity along the
western and eastern coasts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu led to the development of
four large Tamil empires, the Cheras, Cholas, Pandyas and Pallavas and a
number of smaller states, all of whom were warring amongst themselves for
dominance. The Jaffna Kingdom, inhabited by Sri Lankan Tamils, was once
one of the strongest kingdoms of Sri Lanka and controlled much of the north of
the island.

Tamils were noted for their influence on regional trade throughout the Indian
Ocean. Artefacts marking the presence of Roman traders show direct trade was
active between Rome and Southern India and the Pandyas were recorded as
having sent at least two embassies directly to Emperor Augustus in Rome. The
Pandyas and Cholas were historically active in Sri Lanka. The Chola dynasty
successfully invaded several areas in southeast Asia, including the
powerful Srivijaya and the Malay city-state of Kedah. Medieval Tamil guilds and
trading organizations like the Ayyavole and Manigramam played an important
role in Southeast Asian trading networks. Pallava traders and religious leaders
travelled to Southeast Asia and played an important role in the cultural
Indianisation of the region. Scripts brought by Tamil traders to Southeast Asia,
like the Grantha and Pallava scripts, induced the development of many
Southeast Asian scripts such as Khmer, Javanese Kawi
script, Baybayin and Thai.

The Tamil language is one of the world's longest-surviving classical

languages, with a history dating back to 300 BCE. Tamil literature is
dominated by poetry, especially Sangam literature, which is composed of
poems composed between 300 BCE and 300 CE. The most important Tamil
author was the poet and philosopher Thiruvalluvar, who wrote the Tirukkuṛaḷ,
a group of treatises on ethics, politics, love and morality widely considered the
greatest work of Tamil literature.] Tamil visual art is dominated by stylised
Temple architecture in major centres and the productions of images of deities

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in stone and bronze. Chola bronzes, especially the Nataraja sculptures of
the Chola period, have become notable symbols of Hinduism. A major part of
Tamil performing arts is its classical form of dance, the Bharatanatyam,
whereas the popular forms are known as Koothu. Classical Tamil music is
dominated by the Carnatic genre, while gaana and dappan koothu are also
popular genres. Tamil is an official language in Sri Lanka and Singapore. In
2004, Tamil was the first of six to be designated as a classical language of
India.

Although most Tamil people are Hindus, many follow a particular way of
religious practice that is considered to be the Tamil religion, venerating a
plethora of village deities and Ancient Tamil Gods. A smaller number
are Muslims and Christians, and a small Jain community survives from the
classical period as well. Tamil cuisine is informed by varied vegetarian and
non-vegetarian items usually spiced with locally available spices. The music,
the temple architecture and the stylised sculptures favoured by the Tamil
people as in their ancient nation are still being learnt and practised. English
historian and broadcaster Michael Wood called the Tamils the last surviving
classical civilisation on Earth, because the Tamils have preserved substantial
elements of their past regarding belief, culture, music and literature despite the
influence of globalization.

It is unknown whether the term Tamiḻar and its equivalents in Prakrit such
as Damela, Dameda, Dhamila and Damila was a self designation or a term
denoted by outsiders. The Samavayanga Sutra dated to the early 3rd century
BCE contains a reference to a Tamil script named Damili. Epigraphic evidence
of an ethnicity termed as such is found in ancient Sri Lanka where a number of
inscriptions have come to light dating from the 2nd century BCE
mentioning Damela or Dameda persons. The well-known Hathigumpha
inscription of the Kalinga ruler Kharavela refers to a T(ra)mira
samghata (Confederacy of Tamil rulers) dated to 150 BCE. It also mentions
that the league of Tamil kingdoms had been in existence 113 years before then.
In Amaravati in present-day Andhra Pradesh there is an inscription referring to
a Dhamila-vaniya (Tamil trader) datable to the 3rd century CE.

In the Buddhist Jataka story known as Akiti Jataka there is a mention of

a Damila-rattha (Tamil dynasty). There were trade relationship between
the Roman Empire and Pandyan Empire. As recorded by Strabo, Emperor
Augustus of Rome received at Antioch an ambassador from a king
called Pandyan of Dramira. Hence, it is clear that by at least 300 BCE, the
ethnic identity of Tamils was formed as a distinct group. Tamiḻar is
etymologically related to Tamil, the language spoken by Tamil people.
Southworth suggests that the name comes from tam-miz > tam-iz - "self-speak",
or "one's own speech".Zvelebil suggests an etymology of tam-iz,
with tam meaning "self" or "one's self", and "-iz" having the connotation of

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"unfolding sound". Alternatively, he suggests a derivation of tamiz < tam-
iz < *tav-iz < *tak-iz, meaning in origin "the proper process (of speaking)".

History of Tamil Nadu and Sources of ancient Tamil history

In India
Pre-historic period
Possible evidence indicating the earliest presence of Tamil people in modern-
day Tamil Nadu are the megalithic urn burials, dating from around 1500 BCE
and onwards, which have been discovered at various locations in Tamil Nadu,
notably in Adichanallur in Thoothukudi District which conform to the
descriptions of funerals in classical Tamil literature.

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Haplogroup H originated about 45,000 years ago in South Asia, and is only
found among people of South Asian descend.
The Tamil people and other South Asian ethnic groups are of primarily
indigenous South Asian (AASI) ancestry. Indigenous South Asians (AASI) form
their own genetic lineage, not closely related to populations outside of South
Asia.

Rock cut and structural temples are significant part of pandyan architecture. The Vimana
and mandapa are some of the features of the early Pandyan temples. Groups of small
temples are seen at Tiruchirappalli district of Tamil Nadu. The Shiva temples have a
Nandi bull sculpture in front of the maha mandapa.

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10
 Lemuria and Kumari Kandam
Dr. N. Mahalingam, 2010 THE HINDU NEWS PAPER

The origin of the Tamil people and their culture is shrouded in deep mystery. Though there are
many traditions narrated in early literature, “Kumari Kandam”, the land that lay to the south of
India and, which later submerged in the Indian Ocean, has been a matter of conjecture for a
study by scholars.
Two American eminent geologists McKenzie and Sclater have clearly explained that Africa
and South America were locked together as part of the primitive continent until about 200
million years ago.
The present formations of India, Arabia, Africa, Antarctica, South America and Australia
started breaking up due to natural upheavals and moving to different parts of the earth at the
rate of 15,000 years per mile on an average and found their places in the Asian Continent. The
movement of the earth mass, called Navalam Theevu in Tamil, caused the formation of the
present continent of India.
There was a general belief that both Lemuria and Kumari Kandam were one and the same.
However, it has been established by Frank Joseph, Secretary for Ancient American
Association, in his book “The Lost Civilization of Lemuria”, the existence of a land called
Lemuria, one of the world's oldest civilizations, about 2.5 lakh years ago, in Indonesia. Hence,
Lemuria and Kumari Kandam, which existed in southern part of India, are different lands.He
also established that the Mohenjodaro letters of Eastern Islands are nearly 1,00,000 years old.
He has critically examined the views of various scholars and established the source of
Mohenjodaro letters as well as the ancient civilization of Moo and has written that due to
natural calamities, the island of Moo was destroyed about 2.5 lakh years ago.
Eastern Island, 1,000 miles near Japan, has a script called Rongo Rongo and it is identical with
Mohenjodaro letters. This has been fixed as 1,00,000 years old.
From the Island of Moo called Lemuria, which was located near Indonesia about 2.5 lakhs
years ago, people regularly moved out to Atlantis in Mexican Sea and Kumari Kandam in
South Tamil Nadu, about 1,00,000 years ago due to tsunami. These letters are the script of
Moo civilization, which was well developed. From Atlantis, due to tsunami, the Moo people
moved to South America and became Aztecs and Incas. Those who moved to North America
became Mexicans and Red Indians.
From Kumari Kandam, South of Tamil Nadu, about 15,000 years ago people moved to Africa
and became Sumerians and those who moved from Africa to Arabia later became Jews.From
Kumari Kandam, South of Tamil Nadu due to tsunami, people moved to Bengal and became
Cholas and those who moved to Sind and Punjab became Cheras.
In Sillapathikaram, it was mentioned that one “Ezhuthanga Nadu” (7x7 =49 countries) existed.
So, Southern Tamil Nadu and Kumari Kandam are different regions. Those who have moved
to Southern Tamil Nadu were called Pandiyas and they spread over Ceylon and Tirunelvelli.
Tamil literatures say that during the Kurukshethra war, Chera Kings had given food to both
the armies. From all these we come to a conclusion that the Ancient South India would have
been with tall cliffs, dense forests with high fertility.
Because of a calamity, which took place in 9,000 BC, a terrific destruction occurred and
destroyed Chera, Chola and Pandiya Kingdoms and they all then came and settled in South
India. The great scholar Sri Avvai Duraisamy Pillai has established that the “Pancha
Dravidam” is the region consisting Gujarath, Maharashtra, Andhra, Kerala, Karnataka and
Tamil Nadu.

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The indigenous South Asians ("SAsia") form their own genetic lineage and are
not closely related to populations outside of South Asia.
Distribution of indigenous South Asian (AASI), West-Eurasian, and East
Asian/Oceanian lineages.

The AASI originated within South Asia and were genetically isolated from other
populations more than 45,000 years BCe. Indigenous South Asian (AASI)
ancestry forms the primary ancestry for modern South Asians (between 50% to
70%), next to recent West-Eurasian and East-Eurasian components. The AASI
are however not distantly related to the Andamanese peoples, as proposed
before. In contrary, the Andamanese (Onge) are closer to various Oceanic
groups and received some geneflow from South Asia and East Asia respectively.
AASI-like geneflow towards Aboriginal Australians was also detected (up to
30%) and further supports migration waves from South Asia to Oceania.The
Paniya people are, next to the Irula and the Soliga, the best proxy for
indigenous South Asian ancestry.

Various legends became prevalent after the 10th century CE regarding the
antiquity of the Tamil people. According to Iraiyanar Agapporul, a 10th/11th
century annotation on the Sangam literature, the Tamil country extended
southwards beyond the natural boundaries of the Indian peninsula comprising
49 ancient nadus (divisions). The land was supposed to have been destroyed by
a deluge. The Sangam legends also alluded to the antiquity of the Tamil people
by claiming tens of thousands of years of continuous literary activity during
three Sangams.
Classical period

Grey pottery with engravings, Arikamedu, 1st century CE

Ancient Tamils had three monarchical states, headed by kings called "Vendhar"
and several tribal chieftainships, headed by the chiefs called by the general

12
denomination "Vel" or "Velir". Still lower at the local level there were clan chiefs
called "kizhar" or "mannar".The Tamil kings and chiefs were always in conflict
with each other, mostly over territorial hegemony and property. The royal
courts were mostly places of social gathering rather than places of dispensation
of authority; they were centres for distribution of resources. Ancient
Tamil Sangam literature and grammatical works, Tolkappiyam; the ten
anthologies, Pattuppāṭṭu; and the eight anthologies, Eṭṭuttokai also shed light
on ancient Tamil people. The kings and chieftains were patrons of the arts, and
a significant volume of literature exists from this period. The literature shows
that many of the cultural practices that are considered peculiarly Tamil date
back to the classical period.

Agriculture was important during this period, and there is evidence that
networks of irrigation channels were built as early as the 3rd century BCE.
Internal and external trade flourished, and evidence of significant contact
with Ancient Rome exists. Large quantities of Roman coins and signs of the
presence of Roman traders have been discovered
at Karur and Arikamedu. There is evidence that at least two embassies were
sent to the Roman Emperor Augustus by Pandya kings.[35] Potsherds with
Tamil writing have also been found in excavations on the Red Sea, suggesting
the presence of Tamil merchants there. An anonymous 1st century traveller's
account written in Greek, Periplus Maris Erytraei, describes the ports of the
Pandya and Chera kingdoms in Damirica and their commercial activity in great
detail. Periplus also indicates that the chief exports of the ancient Tamils
were pepper, malabathrum, pearls, ivory, silk, spikenard, diamonds, sapphires,
and tortoiseshell.

The classical period ended around the 4th century CE with invasions by
the Kalabhra, referred to as the kalappirar in Tamil literature and
inscriptions. These invaders are described as 'evil kings' and 'barbarians'
coming from lands to the north of the Tamil country, but modern historians
think they could have been hill tribes who lived north of Tamil country.[40] This
period, commonly referred to as the Dark Age of the Tamil country, ended with
the rise of the Pallava dynasty.

Megalithic sarcophagus burial from Tamil Nadu

The Varaha cave bas relief at Mahabalipuram from 7th century CE RIGHT

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 Virampatnam jewelry from funerary burial, 2nd century BCE, Tamil Nadu
Souttoukeny jewelry, 2nd century BCE, Tamil Nadu

Map of ancient oceanic trade, and ports of Tamilakam

Economy, trade and maritime

The Tamil country is strategically located in the Indian Ocean and had access
to a sea trade route.

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 CHAPTER II
HOW CITIES OR CONTINENTS ARE LOST

A lost city is a settlement that fell into terminal decline and became
extensively or completely uninhabited, with the consequence that the site's
former significance was no longer known to the wider world. The locations of
many lost cities have been forgotten, but some have been rediscovered and
studied extensively by scientists. Recently abandoned cities or cities whose
location was never in question might be referred to as ruins or ghost towns.
The search for such lost cities by European explorers and adventurers in
Africa, the Americas, and Southeast Asia from the 15th century onwards
eventually led to the development of archaeology.

Lost cities generally fall into two broad categories: those where all knowledge of
the city's existence was forgotten before it was rediscovered, and those whose
memory was preserved in myth, legend, or historical records but whose
location was lost or at least no longer widely recognized.
Cities may become lost for a variety of reasons including natural disasters,
economic or social upheaval, or war.

The Incan capital city of Vilcabamba was destroyed and depopulated during
the Spanish conquest of Peru in 1572. The Spanish did not rebuild the city,
and the location went unrecorded and was forgotten until it was rediscovered
through a detailed examination of period letters and documents.

Troy was a city located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey. It is best
known for being the focus of the Trojan War described in the Greek Epic Cycle
and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer.
Repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt, the city slowly declined and was abandoned
in the Byzantine era. Buried by time, the city was consigned to the realm of
legend until the location was first excavated in the 1860s.

Other settlements are lost with few or no clues to their decline. For
example, Malden Island, in the central Pacific, was deserted when first visited
by Europeans in 1825, but the unsuspected presence of ruined temples and
the remains of other structures found on the island indicate that a population
of Polynesians had lived there for perhaps several generations some centuries
earlier. Prolonged drought seems the most likely explanation for their demise
and the remote nature of the island meant few visitors.

Rediscovery: With the development of archaeology and the application of

modern techniques, many previously lost cities have been rediscovered.
Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian Inca site situated on a mountain ridge above
the Urubamba Valley in Peru. Often referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas",
it is perhaps the most familiar icon of the Inca World. Machu Picchu was built

15
around 1450, at the height of the Inca Empire. It was abandoned just over 100
years later, in 1572, as a belated result of the Spanish Conquest. It is possible
that most of its inhabitants died from smallpox introduced by travelers before
the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the area. In 1911, Melchor Arteaga led
the explorer Hiram Bingham to Machu Picchu, which had been largely
forgotten by everybody except the small number of people living in the
immediate valley.

Helike was an ancient Greek city that sank at night in the winter of 373 BCE.
The city was located in Achaea, Northern Peloponnesos, two kilometres (12
stadia) from the Corinthian Gulf. The city was thought to be legend until 2001,
when it was rediscovered in the Helike Delta. In 1988, the Greek archaeologist
Dora Katsonopoulou launched the Helike Project to locate the site of the lost
city. In 1994, in collaboration with the University of Patras,
a magnetometer survey was carried out in the midplain of the delta, which
revealed the outlines of a buried building. In 1995, this target was excavated
(now known as the Klonis site), and a large Roman building with standing walls
was brought to light. The city was rediscovered in 2001, buried in an ancient
lagoon.

16
 CHAPTER III
Lost cities of legend
15 Lost Cities Of The World

Fifteen Lost Cities Of The World

The Lost City of Atlantis might not be on any legitimate tour map, but these 15 awe-
inspiring metropolises of the past are open to visitors and well worth a trip.

Machu Picchu-Country: Peru-Civilization: the Incas

17
Inhabited: 15th and 16th centuries A.D.
Conquistadors carrying small pox wiped out the inhabitants of this royal mountaintop
fortress, but the Lost City of the Incas was never actually discovered by the Spanish--in
fact, it wasn't discovered until 1911.

Ghost Towns of the Wild West-Country: U.S.

Civilization: American frontiersmen
Inhabited: 19th and early 20th centuries A.D.
Many of these hubs of Western folklore were boom towns that went bust once gold and
other nearby resources were depleted.
Petra
Country: Jordan-Civilization: the Nabataeans
Inhabited: sixth century B.C.

18
This rose-colored city carved from cliffs garnered fame in the West thanks to the 1980s
blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Angkor
Country: Cambodia
Civilization: the Khmer Empire
Inhabited: ninth century to 15th century A.D.
More than a thousand temples, including Angkor Wat, populate this long-time Khmer
capital. It declined after a successful attack by invaders from what is now Thailand.

iStockphoto

19
Pre-Roman Carthage
Country: Tunisia
Civilization: the Phoenicians
Inhabited: 650 to 146 B.C.
Carthage was home to the Roman Empire's arch-nemesis, Hannibal. It was burned and
the earth salted during the final Punic War.

Chichen Itza-Country: Mexico-Civilization: the Mayans-Inhabited: 600 to 1000 A.D.

Site of one of Mesoamerica's largest ball courts, this royal city is located near a massive
underground cenote, or sinkhole, where the bodies of human sacrifices were dropped.

Pompeii
Country: Italy
Civilization: the Roman Empire

20
Inhabited: seventh/sixth century B.C. to 79 A.D.
Pompeii was a cultural center and vacation destination for Roman high society until it
was destroyed in 79 A.D. by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Left behind are naturally
ash-encased mummies.

Thinkstock
Derinkuyu Underground City
Country: Turkey
Civilization: possibly the Phrygians
Inhabited: Approximately eighth century B.C.to 10th century A.D.
This underground network has more than 10 floors and room for up to 50,000 people,
plus livestock. It is rumored to have been a hideout for early Christians escaping
Roman persecution.

Country: Egypt---MEMPHIS- Civilization: the Ancient Egyptians

Inhabited: third millennium B.C. to seventh century A.D.

21
Located at the mouth of the Nile delta, Memphis thrived for centures as a center of
trade, commerce, religion and royalty. Foreign invasions, including one by Alexander
the Great, let to its demise.

Dmitry
Rukhlenko/iStockphoto
Teotihuacan
Country: Mexico
Civilization: possibly the Totonac people
Inhabited: 100 B.C. to 250 A.D.
This city, the founders of which remain a mystery, is home to some of the largest
pyramids in pre-Columbian America. It inspired several major empires, those of the
Zapotec and Mayans.

Mosque City of Bagerhat- Country: Bangladesh-Civilization: Khan Jahan Ali

Inhabited: 15th century A.D.

22
The city formerly known as Khalifatabad was founded by a Turkish general. It boasts
more than 50 Islamic monuments and the Sixty Pillar Mosque, constructed with 60
pillars and 80 domes.

Sadık Güleç/iStockphoto
Troy
Country: Turkey
Civilization: the Hittites, among others
Inhabited: third millennium B.C. to fourth century A.D.
Troia of Trojan War lore was decimated and rebuilt more than 10 times before
disappearing for good during the Byzantine Empire.

Panorama Media (Beijing)

Ltd./Alamy
Capital Cities and Tombs of the Ancient Koguryo Kingdom- Country: China
Civilization: Koguryo Kingdom-Inhabited: 37 B.C. to 668 A.D.
This site includes three cities that served successively as capitals for the ancient
Korean kingdom of Koguro before Chinese Tang soldiers conquered the region.

23
Thebes-Country: Egypt-Civilization: the Ancient Egyptians-Inhabited: 3200 B.C. to 20
B.C.
A prosperous Nile River port, Thebes' wealth is a subject of Homer's The Iliad. It served
as the capital of the female emperor Hatshepsut's Egyptian empire.

AMMAR ABD
RABBO/Newscom
Babylon
Country: Iraq
Civilization: the Babylonians
Inhabited: third millennium B.C. to sixth century A.D.
One of Mesopotamia's first cities, Babylon gave rise to King Hammurabi of "eye for an
eye" fame before succumbing to defeat by Cyrus the Great of Persia.

CHAPTER IV

24
 CHAPTER IV
RAMATHA city of RAM
"Ramtha" redirects here. For the city in Jordan, see Ramtha, Jordan.
"Ramtha" (the name is claimed to be derived from Ram and to mean "the God"
in Ramtha's language) is the name of a reputed entity whom Knight says
she channels. According to Knight, Ramtha was a Lemurian warrior who
fought the Atlanteans over 35,000 years ago. Knight claims Ramtha speaks of
leading an army over 2.5 million strong (more than twice the estimated world
population at about 30,000 BC) for 63 years, and conquering three fourths of
the known world (which was allegedly going through cataclysmic geological
changes). According to Knight, Ramtha led the army for 10 years until he was
betrayed and almost killed.

Knight maintains Ramtha spent the next seven years in isolation recovering
and observing nature, the seasons, his army making homes and families, and
many other things. She says he later mastered many skills, including foresight

25
and out-of-body experiences, until he led his army to the Indus River while in
his late fifties (after having led his army for 63 years). According to Knight,
Ramtha taught his soldiers everything he knew for 120 days, then he bade
them farewell, rose into the air, and in a bright flash of light
he ascended before them. Knight says that he made a promise to his army he
would come back to teach them everything he had learned. JZ Knight says that
in 1977 Ramtha appeared before her and told her he had come to help her over
the ditch. JZ Knight claims to have become his first student of what she calls
the great work.

Judy Zebra "J. Z." Knight (born Judith Darlene Hampton; March 16, 1946)
is an American spiritual teacher and author known for her
purported channelling of a spiritual entity named Ramtha.
Knight has appeared on US TV shows, such as Larry King,[1] MSNBC[2] and The
Merv Griffin Show, as well as in media such as Psychology Today.[3] Her
teachings have attracted figures from the entertainment and political world
such as Linda Evans and Shirley MacLaine.
Knight claims to bridge ancient wisdom and the power of consciousness
together with the latest discoveries in science.[5] Some of the ideas are similar
to those of Shirley MacLaine, which were criticized for being "kindergarten
metaphysics" by mathematician and skeptic Martin Gardner.[7] Shirley
Maclaine claimed in her book that she was the brother of Ramtha in their
Atlantean past lives. Ramtha's teachings have been criticized by scientists and
skeptics. The Southern Poverty Law Center has criticized Knight for
"homophobic, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic racist rants".
Knight lives in a 12,800-square-foot (1,190 m2) French chateau-style home
in Yelm, Washington, teaches courses and runs Ramtha's School of
Enlightenment.
.

Teachings- Ramtha's School of Enlightenment § Teachings

26
Ramtha is the central figure (the "master teacher") of Ramtha's School of
Enlightenment, started by Knight in 1987 near the town Yelm, Washington.
Classes (or "dialogues") had been held around the world for the previous 10
years. There are currently over 6,000 students of Knight's teachings.[
A central theme of Knight's teachings involves the internalization of divinity
("God is in Us", "You are God, Behold God"). Knight describes Ramtha as
having brought his knowledge to many ancient civilizations in the world such
as the Ancient Egyptians. Her website also suggests traces of the lineage of the
original teachings and philosophies she claims Ramtha taught 35,000 years
ago have appeared throughout history in the schools of philosophers such
as Socrates, religions such as Hinduism and Judaism, and the works of great
minds such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

The four cornerstones of Knight's philosophy are:

1. The statement 'You are god'
2. The directive to make known the unknown
3. The concept that consciousness and energy create the nature of reality
4. The challenge to conquer yourself
5.
When Knight says she is channeling Ramtha she speaks mostly in English in
what sounds like an accent from the Indian Raj, sometimes in a simplistic way.
The claimed entity "Ramtha" has expressed confusion about modern items (or
even the ability to read English), although he seems to have clear
understanding of complex issues of modern physics, such as the quantum
field or neurology, which appear frequently in his speeches.[26] During the
alleged channeling of Ramtha, JZ Knight behaves a bit differently and speaks
in a deeper and stern voice.

Ramtha's School of Enlightenment § Controversy and criticism, and Mediumship

§ Criticism
Most books regarding Ramtha and RSE come from JZK Publishing, one of the
several companies started by Knight. Other books somewhat sympathetic to
Ramtha, such as Finding Enlightenment: Ramtha's School of Ancient Wisdom by
Gordon Melton, have ties to RSE in other ways. The author of Finding
Enlightenment testified for Knight in Knight vs. Knight (1992–1995) against her
former husband, Jeffery Knight (see below).

Skeptics point to Ramtha's story as proof that he does not exist. Ramtha
claims to come from the continent of Lemuria and to have conquered Atlantis.
The existence of the two locations is considered of legendary nature, and
neither has been found. Furthermore, the claim that Ramtha led an army of
2.5 million contradicts estimates of the world population at 33,000 BC, and her
claims of clairvoyant, telepathic, telekinetic and other ESP abilities, for which

27
there is no scientific support, have been heavily criticized by skeptics and
scientific communities.

Ramtha's claim that every person can learn to create their own reality[32] is
itself a philosophical paradox. Julian Baggini, in his book The pig that wants to
be eaten, argues that if everyone was capable of creating their own realities
with their minds, it would be problematic as one person could then create a
reality in which no one was allowed to create their own realities
Magician and skeptic James Randi said that Ramtha's believers have "no way
of evaluating [her teachings]",[34] while Carl Sagan in his book The Demon-
Haunted World says that "the simplest hypothesis is that Ms. Knight makes
'Ramtha' speak all by herself, and that she has no contact with disembodied
entities from the Pleistocene Ice Age." He goes on to write a list of questions
that Ramtha's answers to would help us determine whether he is actually a
disembodied entity from the paleolithic times (such as "What were the
indigenous languages, and social structure?", "What was their writing like?" or
"How do we know that he lived 35,000 years ago?"), and ends by saying that
"[i]nstead, all we are offered are banal homilies."

Books by Knight
 A State of Mind, My Story Ramtha: The Adventure
Begins (1987) ISBN 1578730023
Ramtha books[edit]
 Ramtha: The Children's View of Destiny and Purpose
 To Life 152 pages (selection of Ramtha toasts from May 1988 to May 1996
compiled by Diane Munoz-Smith)
 Ramtha (1970) ASIN B007U7RNHY
 Love Yourself Into Life (1983) ASIN B00424L2XY
 Ominous Dragoon of Dothdura, co-written with Douglas Mahr and Jerry
Banghart (1985) ISBN 0931317134
 I Am Ramtha (1986)
 Ramtha Intensive Soulmates (1987)
 Ramtha Intensive: Change the Days to Come (1987)
 Between Two Worlds: The Message of Ramtha (1987) ISBN 0940539063
 Voyage to the New World: An Adventure Into Unlimitedness, (co-written with
Douglas Mahr (1987) ISBN 0449131858
 Ramtha (1988)
 Ramtha: An Introduction (1988) ISBN 0932201768
 Destination Freedom: A Time-Travel Adventure, Stage II: Arrival Instruction,
co-written with Douglas Mahr (1989) ISBN 0132022273
 UFO's and the Nature of Reality: Understanding Alien Consciousness and
Interdimensional Mind (1990)
 Spinner of Tales, Ramtha stories compiled by Deborah Kerins
(1991) ISBN 0962972371

28
Ramtha (a.k.a. JZ Knight)
"I don't care what their personal philosophy is. The fact
is, their dollar is green." --John Reeves, manager of
Dick's Food Center in Yelm, Washington*
"If I waited on nobody but Ramtha people all day, my life
would be a lot happier." --Rita, a waitress at Jennee's in
Yelm*
Ramtha is a 35,000 year-old
spirit-warrior who appeared
in JZ Knight’s kitchen in
Tacoma, Washington, in
1977. Knight claims that she
is Ramtha’s channel. She
also owns the copyright to
Ramtha and conducts
sessions in which she
pretends to go into a trance
and speaks Hollywood’s version of Elizabethan English
in a guttural, husky voice. According to Wikipedia, the "Z"
stands for Zebra, and Knight was born Judith Darlene
Hampton on March 16, 1946, in Roswell, New Mexico.
She has thousands of followers and has made millions of
dollars performing as Ramtha at seminars ($1,000 a
crack) and at her Ramtha School of Enlightenment, and
from the sales of tapes, books, and accessories (Clark
and Gallo 1993). She must have hypnotic powers.
Searching for self-fulfillment, otherwise normal people
obey her command to spend hours blindfolded in a cold,
muddy, doorless maze. In the dark, they seek what
Ramtha calls the ‘void at the center.’
Knight says she used to be “spiritually restless,” but not
any more. Ramtha from Atlantis via Lemuria has
enlightened her. He first appeared to her, she says, while
she was in business school having extraordinary
experiences with UFOs. She must have a great rapport
with her spirit companion, since he shows up whenever
she needs him to put on a performance. It is not clear
why Ramtha would choose Knight, but it is very clear
why Knight would choose Ramtha: fame and fortune, or
simple delusion.
Knight claims to believe that she's lived many lives. If so,
one wonders what she needs Ramtha for: she's been
there, done that, herself, in past lives. She ought to be
able to speak for herself after so many reincarnations.
29
The film opens with writer Fred Alan Wolfe imploring us
to “Get into the mystery!” We just have to decide “How
far down the rabbit hole do we want to go?” The central
premise of the film is that there is no objective reality.
The world is nothing more than observer effects. Amit
Goswami, an emeritus professor of physics from the
University of Oregon, states: “The material world around
us is nothing but possible movements of consciousness.
I am choosing moment by moment my experience.
Heisenberg said atoms are not things, only tendencies.”
Other speakers describe matter as “like a thought,
concentrated bits of information.”
With a bit of candor Wolfe states that quantum physics is
“subject to a range of debatable hypotheses.” At the
center of the debate is how to interpret the fact that at
the subatomic level the act of observing electrons has an
effect on their properties. Some forms of measurement
pick up wave-like effects while others pick up particle
effects. If the form of observation has such an effect on
reality can we say there is an objective reality at all? In
the famous debates between Einstein and Niels Bohr
over the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum effects,
Einstein was never won over to the notion of the
absence of objective reality, stating: “I think that a
particle must have a separate reality independent of the
measurement. That is, an electron has spin, location and
so forth even when it is not being measured. I like to
think the moon is still there even if I am not looking at it
looking at it.”
The idea that consciousness creates reality is at the core
of most religions. Objective reality is the unfolding of the
spiritual world on the plane of physical existence. In the
past it was consciousness of god or gods doing their
work on earth in a rich variety of religious mythology. In
New Age interpretations you are the god of your own
individual world.
Additional bits and pieces of quantum theory are
presented in the film, including: superposition theories,
direction of time, Boehm’s implicate order, information
theory, and others. Most viewers have no time, let alone
the science background knowledge, to evaluate the
validity of such claims. Quantum theory is used to
punctuate religious and political sound bites, such as this
one from psychologist Jeffrey Satinover: “Materialism
strips people of responsibility, quantum physics puts it
Knight claims that spirit or consciousness can "design
thoughts" which can be "absorbed" by the brain and
constructed "holographically". These thoughts can affect
your life. If this means what I think it means, then Knight
has taken the notion of proving the obvious to new
heights: she has discovered that one's thoughts can
affect one's life.
Knight has rewritten not only the book on neurology, she
has also rewritten the book on archaeology and history.
The world was not at all like the scholars of the world say
it was 35,000 years ago. We were not primitive hunters
and gatherers who liked to paint in caves. No, there were
very advanced civilizations around then. It doesn't matter
that there is no evidence for this, because Knight has
rewritten the book of evidence as well. Evidence is what
appears to you, even in visions and hallucinations and
delusions. Evidence is anything you feel like making up.
So, when you are told that Ramtha came first from
Lemuria in the Pacific Ocean, do not seek out scholars to
help you understand that ancient civilization because the
scholars of the world do not believe Lemuria existed
except as a fantasy. When you are told that Ramtha led
an army of 2,500,000 warriors into battle even though
that number exceeds the number of adult males 35,000
years ago, do not seek out scholars to help you
understand this fantasy. When you are told that the
Lemurians were a great civilization from the time of the
dinosaurs, do not expect to be burdened with evidence.
There isn't any evidence. The only mammals around at
the time of the dinosaurs were primitive and non-
hominid, very much like lemurs. Maybe the Lemurians
were really lemurs. No, the Lemurians came from
"beyond the North star," according to Knight, which may
explain why all humans ever since have looked to the
sky with longing.
But as cool as Lemuria was, it could not compare with its
counterpart in the Atlantic Ocean. Knight's story of
Ramtha in Atlantis is too bizarre to retell. Let's just say
that Ramtha was a warrior who appeared to Edgar
Cayce and leave it at that. Her story is appealing to
those who are not comfortable in today's world. The
past must have been better. It must have
been safer then, and people must have been nobler.
This message is especially appealing to people who feel
like misfits.
Ramtha, like Jesus, is said to have ascended into
heaven, after his many conquests, including the
conquest of himself. He said he'd be back and he kept
30
squarely in your lap.”
Along with talking heads and computer graphics is a
loose drama of a woman in the midst of depression
played by actress Marlee Matlin. She’s a photographer
who hates herself, gains no pleasure from the world, and
seems to be having trouble with her medications.
A chiropractor named Joe Dispenza diagnoses her
problems with Ramtha’s version of neuroscience.
Dispenza notes that in brain imaging parts of the visual
cortex light up during both mental imagery tasks and
visual perception. From this he draws the absurd
conclusion that we don’t know the difference between
what is real and what we imagine. Many different mental
functions share cortical areas to carry out the complexity
of their tasks. Thought and speech both utilize language
areas of the brain. Visions during dreaming that use the
visual cortex get reality tested upon waking. There are
people who have great difficulty seeing the difference
between the real and the imagined. They are suffering
from psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, or they
have ingested large amounts of drugs or alcohol. If
Dispenza is right that we live in an imagined world not
grounded in reality, testing his theory on your drive home
would lead to a carnage of competing versions of where
the road begins and ends.
Matlin’s depression raises problems with the New Age
myth that the mind is a like a big department store where
we are free to choose any thought or feeling we want.
Why would we choose to be depressed? Why don’t we
just snap out of it and think happier thoughts?
A major finding of neuroscience is that the conscious
“free” mind arises out of powerful unconscious
processes. Joseph Ledoux at New York University has
shown that the limbic system produces a fear response
before we are even aware of seeing the frightful image,
like a snake in the grass. Patterns of emotional and
cognitive responses to the world are laid down in a
complex dialectic of inherited biology, early childhood
experiences, and current functioning in the world. How
this all produces consciousness is one of the most
challenging questions facing brain scientists. The late
Francis Crick spent thirty years on the question.
Dispenza tells us that the answer is quite simple. Since
we can’t stop feeling and thinking, and an addiction is
his promise by coming to Knight in 1977 while she was in
her pyramidiot phase. She put a toy pyramid on her head
and lo and behold if that wasn't a signal for Ramtha to
return to the land of the living dead:
And he looked at me and he said: "Beloved woman, I am
Ramtha the Enlightened One, and I have come to help
you over the ditch" And, well, what would you do? I didn't
understand because I am a simple person so I looked to
see if the floor was still underneath the chair. And he
said: "It is called the ditch of limitation", and he said:
"And I am here, and we are going to do a grand work
together."*
Apparently, the first rule of the wise is: beware the ditch
of limitation. Knight's husband-to-be must have fallen into
the ditch. He was there at the time Ramtha first invaded
his girlfriend's body, but he was so busy lining up
pyramids with a compass that he didn't see Ramtha. He
did feel The Enlightened One's magnetic charm,
however; for, according to Knight (and who wouldn't
believe her?), the compass needle was spinning around
madly and they saw "ionization" in the kitchen air.
Ramtha then became Knight's personal tutor for two
years, teaching her everything from theology to quantum
mechanics. He taught her how to have out-of-body
experiences. The experience was so extraordinary she
had to dig very deep for a metaphor to try to convey the
bliss she felt: "I felt like....like a fish in the ocean."
Her big break came when her son, Brandy, developed
"an allergic reaction to life." He had to have a few shots
but he was allergic to the allergy shots. Fortunately, "the
Ram" (as Knight calls her spirit invader) came to the
rescue and taught her therapeutic touch. She healed
Brandy with prayer and her touch "in less than a minute,"
greatly reducing her medical bills. She had performed
a miracle and now nothing would stop her from entering
the public arena.
Ramtha the feminist
Perhaps the reason JZ Knight is so successful in getting
followers and students is that Ramtha is a feminist. He
recognized that if he appeared in his own masculine
body, he would perpetuate the myth that gods are male
and further contribute to the eternal abuse of women.
That's what he said. So women have been abused by
men, and herded by men through religion to perform
according to those religious doctrines, and in fact,
women were despised by Jehovah. So, he said: "It is
important that when the teachings come through, they
31
“something we cannot stop,” then bad thoughts are just a
problem of addiction. All we need is Ramtha’s recovery
program.
Noted cellular researcher Candice Pert appears for a
valuable discussion of hormones, peptides, and
neurotransmitters in the brain. Since discovering opiate
receptors she has since drifted into New Age nonsense.
If cells are over stimulated by neurotransmitters they
adjust though a process called down regulation.
Dispenza tells us that this is the cause of lifelong
problems, since the down regulation is passed on in cell
division. In a forum on the film this past spring, I had to
point out to him that brain cells, unlike other cells in the
body, do not divide. [Note: John Renish has pointed out
that Olmstead is wrong about brain cells not dividing.
Since 1997 there has been evidence that brain cells do
divide.* "The discovery of life-long neurogenesis in
humans has redefined our understanding of the brain
and spinal cord."*]
Addictive processes and habits of thought and feeling
are both carried out by chemical signaling between
neurons. The major difference is that in addiction reward
circuits in the brain are hijacked and distorted by rapid
elevation of chemicals such as dopamine and
endorphins due to drugs injected into the body. There is
growing evidence that genes play a role in determining a
person’s vulnerability to addiction.
Matlin lifts out of her depression after many drinks and a
romantic encounter at a Polish wedding-perhaps the
mind really is influenced by the body and the power of
interpersonal relations. During her hangover the next
morning she is lifted into a state of bliss when reminded
of the power of thought as shown by the work of Masaru
Emoto.
Emoto claims to have proven that thoughts are so
powerful they can change the structure of water. His
“experiments” consist of taping written words to glasses
of water. The next day beautiful crystals appear on jars
with words like “love.” We are not told that these are
actually ice crystals. In his book, Messages from Water,
Emoto claims that water can understand every language
in the world, and all their emotional and metaphoric
nuances, by picking up on the linguistic vibrations. Water
tells us that classical music is good and heavy metal is
bad. Water can educate us as to whether religious and
come through the body of a woman."*
This feminization of gods must be pleasing to people
who are tired of masculine divinities. According to Knight,
Ramtha will help people master their humanity and “open
our minds to new frontiers of potential.”
JZ gets her last name from the first man she married,
Jeff Knight, who did not leave this planet with much good
to say about his ex-bride, as evidenced by this 1992
interview. Jeff and Judy started out as horse breeders.
Jeff Knight died of AIDS in 1994. Since that time JZ has
been married five more times.
Knight's compound outside the town of Yelm has been
built over the former horse-breeding grounds:
The estate consists of JZ's present home, a white 12,800
square foot French chateau styled 4-bedroom house, her
original home (a 1,600 sq. ft. house now used as
offices), the Great Hall (a converted 15,375 sq. ft. indoor
riding arena once used for horse training which was
refurbished and floored with Astroturf and seats 1,000
people), and the adjoining barn (now used almost
entirely for offices), a former stallion pen (now housing
an on-location bookstore used during events) as well as
several other outbuildings. In recent years, Ms. Knight
also bought the two adjoining parcels in order to ensure
safety and privacy for attendees of the events.*
The Ranch, as her estate is called, is located east of
Olympia on State Route 510. Knight has a store in town
called JZ Rose and an online store as well. The stores
sell many items not related to Ramtha. Although Knight
is clearly good for many business in Yelm, not all the
locals are happy with the Ramsters, as her followers are
called:
....to counter the surge in Ramster followers, churches of
more traditional faiths are springing up all over the area,
so a virtual spiritual war is taking place in the little,
formerly sleepy town of Yelm. You can see this played
out everywhere. In the town’s only movie theater there
are ads before the films for Christian schools and church
programs that follow ads about hair stylists who have the
Ramster symbol on their ad, subtly in the corner but a
clear signal to fellow Ramsters to get their hair cut at the
Ramster salon rather than other salons.
the teachings
32
political figures are good or bad people. Water is so
perceptive that, when played a recording of Elvis singing
“Heartbreak Hotel,” the water crystal split into two
crystals in sympathy.
Another “proof” of the power of thought presented in the
film is the so-called “Maharishi Effect.” In 1993, 4,000
meditators gathered in Washington, D.C. under the
direction of physicist John Hagelin. Hagelin predicted in
advance that the meditations would drive down the
violent crime rate in the city by 25 percent that summer.
Despite the fact that the murder rate actually rose,
Hagelin announced a year later that his analysis proved
that the violent crime rate fell just as he had predicted. In
his recent book he states that the meditators “function
essentially as a ‘washing machine’ for the entire society.”
As with Emoto’s work, there has been no replication by
other scientists, no control groups, and no publications in
reputable peer reviewed scientific journals to confirm the
Maharishi Effect.
The end of the film meanders into speculation about god.
Knight tells us that Ramtha has arrived to free you from
the gods who determine good and evil and punish you in
the process. You can have it anyway you want. You are
god. You can return to those wonderful days of childhood
when the world really seemed centered around you and
was created by your fantasies.
In April of this year I invited one of the film’s directors,
William Arntz, along with one of his science consultants,
Joe Dispenza, to Portland State University. To put the
question of free will and responsibility to the test I put up
a photo of a child with Downs Syndrome. I asked if this
child was free to create any reality he wanted. Was this
child responsible for his condition, I queried? Arnzt
responded that in fact he is to blame for his disorder--he
is paying for transgressions in a previous life. This is the
same doctrine of reincarnation and karma that justified
the caste system in India. The same logic blames the
patient for their cancer.
What begins as promises of freedom of thought soon
evolves into demands for correct thought and behavior.
As Satinover says in the film: “People ought to be
instructed to make different choices.” The source of the
correct ideas is the prophet. The promised payoff for
adherence to the dogma is freedom from the fears of
 According to Knight, the four cornerstones of Ramtha's
philosophy are:
1. the statement, 'You are god';
2. the mandate to make known the unknown;
3. the concept that consciousness and energy creates [sic]
the nature of reality;
4. the challenge to conquer yourself.
The first statement is ubiquitous in the New Age
literature and owes its origin to the mystical notion that
all is one. The second and fourth are banal
commonplaces, and the third is the basis of the New
Thought movement of the 19th century that has been
resurrected many times in various positive-thinking
movements such as The Secret.
Despite the fact that there's nothing new or profound in
Ramtha's teaching, there are many people for whom
these ideas are new and exciting or at least obscure
enough to awaken them from their suicidal or world-
weary doldrums. One of Knight's former bodyguards,
Glen Cunningham, has explained how his ex-wife was
diverted from suicidal thoughts by listening to Ramtha
audio tapes. Cunningham also described how he used
Ramtha's teachings to lift the spirits of his son's teenage
friends when they were going through hard times.
Cunningham knew that the teachings were lifted from
other sources, but the messages were useful even if they
didn't originate from a 35,000-year-old Cro-Magnon
warrior. Cunningham also claims to have lifted the spirts
of several of Knight's followers by telling them that Knight
had said something positive about them even though she
probably didn't even know who they were.
The Cunningham interviews are available from Wide Eye
Cinema.
Knight has sued several people, but so far she has only
sued those who have tried to copy her shtick. When
Judith Ravell of Berlin started chanelling Ramtha, Knight
sued and won. Ravell was ordered to stop claiming she
was in contact with Ramtha and to pay Knight $800.*
Knight seems to ignore critics, probably realizing that
followers will come to her no matter what her critics say.
However banal or platitudinous her messages, they
resonate with many people who are unhappy or bored
with their lives. And many of these seekers have cash in
hand.
33
death, disease, and misery. The fact that these are deep
fears that we are all vulnerable to, sets the stage for
rampant exploitation and abuse by charlatans and cults.
As JZ Knight asks, “Have you ever stopped for a
moment to look at yourself through the eyes of the
ultimate observer?”
About the reviewer: John Olmsted MA, Med. is an
adjunct instructor in psychology at Portland State
University in Portland Oregon where he teaches a
course in paranormal psychology. He is mental health
therapist specializing in issues of learning, attention and
the brain. ctandjo@hotmail.com
Another reviewer, Johann Hari, had this to say
about What the Bleep Do We Know?:
The global understanding of science is being slowly
contaminated.
If you want an example of this new pseudo-science, check out
the dismal, brain-rotting new movie What the Bleep Do We
Know? which arrives fresh from sleeper-success in the States.
Marlee Matlin plays a woman who is having a strange day; she
meets a boy who is capable of bizarre physical tricks, and he
asks her, 'How far down the rabbit-hole do you want to go?'
The film claims to be a serious study of the philosophical
implications of quantum physics, and Matlin's story is intercut
with interviews from people who seem to be scientists. At first,
they simply point out some of the extraordinary things that
have emerged from the study of matter at a quantum (sub-
molecular) level. But gradually the film begins to stir in
unscientific (and absurd) extrapolations from quantum physics.
The movie's 'scientists' begin to claim that discoveries in
quantum physics provide proof for a whole range of fantastical
New Age claims. They say you can walk on water if only 'you
believe it with every fibre of your being'.
The real scientist Richard Dawkins summarises the film's
assumptions: 'Quantum physics is deeply mysterious and
incomprehensible. Eastern spirituality is deeply mysterious and
incomprehensible. Therefore they must be saying the same
thing.' Sadly, Dawkins' reaction is an exception; many
newspapers have lauded the film as a 'brilliant scientific study'.
Okay, so it's a dumb movie, you might think, but what
harm does it do? On its own, very little. But What the
Bleep ... bears all the hallmarks of the new pseudo-
sciences. One typical tactic is to take a gap in scientific
evidence and fill it with faith-based claims. For example,
geologists have discovered a gap in the fossil record
Like Richard Bandler, Knight has a fondness for trademarking
words or expressions. Knight, however, trademarks many
items that are not unique to her teaching. Ramtha ®, C&E®,
Consciousness & Energy®, Fieldwork®, The Tank®, Blue
Body®, Twilight®, Torsion ProcessSM, Neighborhood Walk,SM,
The GridSM, Create Your DaySM, Become a Remarkable Life®,
Mind As MatterSM, Analogical ArcherySM, and GladysSM are
trademarks and service marks of JZ Knight. And don't you
forget it.
See also "Carlos" hoax, channeling, Bridey Murphy, Edgar
Cayce, New Thought, and T. Lobsang Rampa.
reader comments
further reading
books and articles
Alcock, James E. "Channeling," in The Encyclopedia of the
Paranormal edited by Gordon Stein (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus
Books, 1996), pp.759-766.
Chandler, Russell. 1993. Understanding the New Age.
Clark, Nancy, and Nick Gallo. "Do You Believe in Magic - New
Light on the New Age," Family Circle, Feb. 23, 1993, p. 99.
According to Clark and Gallo, an estimated 3,000 people are
enrolled in Knight's school, with as many as 1,500 living in the
Tacoma area. Five years later she is still going strong.
Gardner, Martin. The New Age: Notes of a Fringe
Watcher (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1988).
"Voices from Beyond: The Age-Old Mystery of Channeling,"
in The Fringes of Reason (New York: Harmony Books, 1989).
websites
Enlighten Me Free - support for those who feel abused by
Ramtha's School of Enlightenment
Ramtha's School of Enlightenment (Rick Ross)
Ramtha, J-Z Knight, and Yelm’s Only Local Cult
J. Z. Knight - Wikipedia
Ramtha's School of Enlightenment
JZ Knight
Into The Mystic: Ramtha Meets the Scholars by Steve
Diamond (these are some scholars!)
New Age Is Fast Becoming Old Hat In Yelm -- Small Town
Learns To Live With `Ramtha'
Far Out, Man. But Is It Quantum Physics? By DENNIS
OVERBYE
What the BLEEP!? Down the Rabbit Hole: review by ANNIE
WAGNER
Read John Olmstead's review of "What the Bleep Do We
Know?"
Read Michael Shermer's Scientific American column on "What
the Bleep Do We Know?" and the response of Stuart Hameroff
M.D., who appeared in the film defending what Shermer calls
"quantum quackery."
34
which makes it hard to explain how evolution worked at
certain periods. The neo-creationists seize on this and
claim it as 'proof' that evolution didn't happen at all.
(Incredibly, over 40 per cent of Americans believe them).
The New Agers do the same with the gaps in quantum
physics.
The Independent, May 25, 2005
**************************************
Ramtha’s School of Quantum Flapdoodle
A review of What the #$*! Do We Know? A film by
William Arntz, Betsy Chasse, Mark Vicente, starring
Marlee Matlin.
By John Olmsted
What do you get when you combine bits of quantum
physics, brain science and the channeled prophecies of
a 35,000 year old god/warrior named Ramtha? The film,
What the #$*! Do We Know?, is a fantasy docudrama
cult hit that has found national distribution and is playing
to full houses across the country.
The film is the latest effort by religious, mystical, and
New Age gurus such as Deepak Chopra [Deepak
Chopra is investigated in Vol 6 #2 of SKEPTIC
magazine.] to cloak their views in the mantle of science.
Physicist Victor Stenger coined the term “Quantum
metaphysics” where “today’s cosmic mind has been
repackaged by an appeal to twentieth century science for
its authority.” The cosmic mind in this case is that of JZ
Knight, who claims to channel a 35,000-year old
god/warrior named Ramtha. Because Ramtha instructed
her to demand a packet of gold from all who seek his
wisdom, she has reaped millions over the past quarter
century. The films’ producers, writers, directors, and a
number of the stars are members of her Ramtha School
of Enlightenment in Washington.
Quantum physics and neuroscience are complex and
controversial topics. The film discusses them in twenty-
second sound bites mixed with cutting edge graphics.
The effect is a blend of riveted attention and confusion
that puts the critical mind to sleep, softening up the
viewer to ideas that begin with human potential and end
with walking on water.
 CHAPTER V
THE CONCEPT of a LOST CONTINENT

Lost lands are islands or continents believed by some to have existed during
pre-history, but to have since disappeared as a result of catastrophic geological
phenomena. Such continents are generally thought to have subsided into the
sea, leaving behind only a few traces or legends by which they may be known.
Legends of lost lands often originated as scholarly or scientific theories, only to
be picked up by writers and individuals outside the academy. Occult and New
Age writers have made use of Lost Lands, as have subaltern peoples such as
the Tamils in India.
Phantom islands, as opposed to lost lands, are land masses formerly believed
by cartographers to exist in the current historical age, but to have been
discredited as a result of expanding geographic knowledge.
The classification of lost lands as continents, islands, or other regions is in some
cases subjective; for example, Atlantis is variously described as either a "lost
island" or a "lost continent". Lost land theories may originate
in mythology or philosophy, or in scholarly or scientific theories, such
as catastrophic theories of geology.

Atlantis "island of Atlas" is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on

the hubris of nations in Plato's works Timaeus and Critias, wherein it
represents the antagonist naval power that besieges "Ancient Athens",
the pseudo-historic embodiment of Plato's ideal state in The Republic.[1] In the

35
story, Athens repels the Atlantean attack unlike any other nation of the known
world, supposedly bearing witness to the superiority of Plato's concept of a
state. The story concludes with Atlantis falling out of favor with the deities and
submerging into the Atlantic Ocean.
Despite its minor importance in Plato's work, the Atlantis story has had a
considerable impact on literature. The allegorical aspect of Atlantis was taken
up in utopian works of several Renaissance writers, such as Francis
Bacon's New Atlantis and Thomas More's Utopia.[5][6] On the other hand,
nineteenth-century amateur scholars misinterpreted Plato's narrative as
historical tradition, most famously Ignatius L. Donnelly in his Atlantis: The
Antediluvian World. Plato's vague indications of the time of the events (more
than 9,000 years before his time[7]) and the alleged location of Atlantis ("beyond
the Pillars of Hercules") gave rise to much pseudoscientific speculation.[8] As a
consequence, Atlantis has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced
prehistoric lost civilizations and continues to inspire contemporary fiction, from
comic books to films.
While present-day philologists and classicists agree on the story's fictional
character, there is still debate on what served as its inspiration. Plato is known
to have freely borrowed some of his allegories and metaphors from older
traditions, as he did, for instance, with the story of Gyges. This led a number of
scholars to investigate possible inspiration of Atlantis from Egyptian records of
the Thera eruption,[12][13] the Sea Peoples invasion, or the Trojan War.] Others
have rejected this chain of tradition as implausible and insist that Plato created
an entirely fictional account, drawing loose inspiration from contemporary
events such as the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC or the
destruction of Helike in 373 BC.

Timaeus

A fifteenth-century Latin translation of Plato's Timaeus

36
The only primary sources for Atlantis are Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias;
all other mentions of the island are based on them. The dialogues claim to
quote Solon, who visited Egypt between 590 and 580 BC; they state that he
translated Egyptian records of Atlantis. Written in 360 BC, Plato introduced
Atlantis in Timaeus:
Critias
According to Critias, the Hellenic deities of old divided the land so that each
deity might have their own lot; Poseidon was appropriately, and to his liking,
bequeathed the island of Atlantis. The island was larger than Ancient
Libya and Asia Minor combined, but it was later sunk by an earthquake and
became an impassable mud shoal, inhibiting travel to any part of the ocean.
Plato asserted that the Egyptians described Atlantis as an island consisting
mostly of mountains in the northern portions and along the shore and
encompassing a great plain in an oblong shape in the south "extending in one
direction three thousand stadia [about 555 km; 345 mi], but across the center
inland it was two thousand stadia [about 370 km; 230 mi]." Fifty stadia [9 km;
6 mi] from the coast was a mountain that was low on all sides ... broke it off all
round about ... the central island itself was five stades in diameter [about
0.92 km; 0.57 mi].

In Plato's metaphorical tale, Poseidon fell in love with Cleito, the daughter
of Evenor and Leucippe, who bore him five pairs of male twins. The eldest of
these, Atlas, was made rightful king of the entire island and the ocean (called
the Atlantic Ocean in his honor), and was given the mountain of his birth and
the surrounding area as his fiefdom. Atlas's twin Gadeirus, or Eumelus in
Greek, was given the extremity of the island toward the pillars of Hercules. The
other four pairs of twins—Ampheres and Evaemon, Mneseus and Autochthon,
Elasippus and Mestor, and Azaes and Diaprepes—were also given "rule over
many men, and a large territory."

Poseidon carved the mountain where his love dwelt into a palace and enclosed
it with three circular moats of increasing width, varying from one to three
stadia and separated by rings of land proportional in size. The Atlanteans then
built bridges northward from the mountain, making a route to the rest of the
island. They dug a great canal to the sea, and alongside the bridges carved
tunnels into the rings of rock so that ships could pass into the city around the
mountain; they carved docks from the rock walls of the moats. Every passage
to the city was guarded by gates and towers, and a wall surrounded each ring
of the city. The walls were constructed of red, white, and black rock, quarried
from the moats, and were covered with brass, tin, and the precious
metal orichalcum, respectively.

According to Critias, 9,000 years before his lifetime a war took place between
those outside the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar and those who
dwelt within them. The Atlanteans had conquered the parts of Libya within the
Pillars of Hercules, as far as Egypt, and the European continent as far
37
as Tyrrhenia, and had subjected its people to slavery. The Athenians led an
alliance of resistors against the Atlantean empire, and as the alliance
disintegrated, prevailed alone against the empire, liberating the occupied lands.
But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single
day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth,
and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea.
For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable,
because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the
subsidence of the island.

Ancient

A map showing the supposed extent of the Atlantean Empire, from Ignatius L. Donnelly's Atlantis: the
Antediluvian World, 1882

Modern
Aside from Plato's original account, modern interpretations regarding Atlantis
are an amalgamation of diverse, speculative movements that began in the
sixteenth century,[50] when scholars began to identify Atlantis with the New
World. Francisco Lopez de Gomara was the first to state that Plato was
referring to America, as did Francis Bacon and Alexander von Humboldt;
Janus Joannes Bircherod said in 1663 orbe novo non-novo ("the New World is
not new"). Athanasius Kircher accepted Plato's account as literally true,
describing Atlantis as a small continent in the Atlantic Ocean.[20]
Contemporary perceptions of Atlantis share roots with Mayanism, which can be
traced to the beginning of the Modern Age, when European imaginations were
fueled by their initial encounters with the indigenous peoples of the
Americas.[51] From this era sprang apocalyptic and utopian visions that would
inspire many subsequent generations of theorists.

Most of these interpretations are considered pseudohistory, pseudoscience,

or pseudoarchaeology, as they have presented their works
as academic or scientific, but lack the standards or criteria.

38
The Flemish cartographer and geographer Abraham Ortelius is believed to have
been the first person to imagine that the continents were joined
before drifting to their present positions. In the 1596 edition of his Thesaurus
Geographicus he wrote: "Unless it be a fable, the island of Gadir or Gades
[Cadiz] will be the remaining part of the island of Atlantis or America, which
was not sunk (as Plato reports in the Timaeus) so much as torn away from
Europe and Africa by earthquakes and flood... The traces of the ruptures are
shown by the projections of Europe and Africa and the indentations of America
in the parts of the coasts of these three said lands that face each other to
anyone who, using a map of the world, carefully considered them. So that
anyone may say with Strabo in Book 2, that what Plato says of the island of
Atlantis on the authority of Solon is not a figment."

39
Recent times
As continental drift became widely accepted during the 1960s, and the
increased understanding of plate tectonics demonstrated the impossibility of a
lost continent in the geologically recent past,[72] most "Lost Continent" theories
of Atlantis began to wane in popularity.

40
Plato scholar Julia Annas, Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Arizona, had this to say on the matter:
The continuing industry of discovering Atlantis illustrates the dangers of
reading Plato. For he is clearly using what has become a standard device of
fiction—stressing the historicity of an event (and the discovery of hitherto
unknown authorities) as an indication that what follows is fiction. The idea is
that we should use the story to examine our ideas of government and power. We
have missed the point if instead of thinking about these issues we go off
exploring the sea bed. The continuing misunderstanding of Plato as historian
here enables us to see why his distrust of imaginative writing is sometimes
justified.

One of the proposed explanations for the historical context of the Atlantis story
is a warning of Plato to his contemporary fourth-century fellow-citizens against
their striving for naval power.[
Kenneth Feder points out that Critias's story in the Timaeus provides a major
clue. In the dialogue, Critias says, referring to Socrates' hypothetical society:
And when you were speaking yesterday about your city and citizens, the tale
which I have just been repeating to you came into my mind, and I remarked
with astonishment how, by some mysterious coincidence, you agreed in almost
every particular with the narrative of Solon. ...
Feder quotes A. E. Taylor, who wrote, "We could not be told much more plainly
that the whole narrative of Solon's conversation with the priests and his
intention of writing the poem about Atlantis are an invention of Plato's fancy."

Location hypotheses of Atlantis

Since Donnelly's day, there have been dozens of locations proposed for Atlantis,
to the point where the name has become a generic concept, divorced from the
specifics of Plato's account. This is reflected in the fact that many proposed
sites are not within the Atlantic at all. Few today are scholarly or archaeological
hypotheses, while others have been made by psychic (e.g., Edgar Cayce) or
other pseudoscientific means. (The Atlantis researchers Jacques Collina-Girard
and Georgeos Díaz-Montexano, for instance, each claim the other's hypothesis
is pseudoscience.) Many of the proposed sites share some of the characteristics
of the Atlantis story (water, catastrophic end, relevant time period), but none
has been demonstrated to be a true historical Atlantis.

41
Satellite image of the islands of Santorini. From the Minoan eruption event, and the 1964 discovery
of Akrotiri on the island, this location is one of many sites purported to have been the location of Atlantis.

In or near the Mediterranean Sea

Most of the historically proposed locations are in or near the Mediterranean
Sea: islands such as Sardinia, Crete, Santorini (Thera), Sicily, Cyprus,
and Malta; land-based cities or states such as Troy,Tartessos, and Tantalis (in
the province of Manisa, Turkey);[81] Israel-Sinai or Canaan; and northwestern
Africa.

The Thera eruption, dated to the seventeenth or sixteenth century BC, caused
a large tsunami that some experts hypothesize devastated the Minoan
civilization on the nearby island of Crete, further leading some to believe that
this may have been the catastrophe that inspired the story. In the area of
the Black Sea the following locations have been
proposed: Bosporus and Ancomah (a legendary place near Trabzon).

Others have noted that, before the sixth century BC, the mountains on either
side of the Gulf of Laconia were called the "Pillars of Hercules",[37][38] and they
could be the geographical location being described in ancient reports upon
which Plato was basing his story. The mountains stood at either side of the
southernmost gulf in Greece, the largest in the Peloponnese, and that gulf
opens onto the Mediterranean Sea. If from the beginning of discussions,
misinterpretation of Gibraltar as the location rather than being at the Gulf of
Laconia, would lend itself to many erroneous concepts regarding the location of
Atlantis. Plato may have not been aware of the difference. The Laconian pillars
open to the south toward Crete and beyond which is Egypt. The Thera
eruption and the Late Bronze Age collapse affected that area and might have
been the devastation to which the sources used by Plato referred. Significant
events such as these would have been likely material for tales passed from one
generation to another for almost a thousand years.

42
City Of Atlantis City-Building Survival Game Launches New Trailer
Posted on June 6, 2021 -by Joshua Nelson

Independent game developer SuperIndie Games has launched the latest trailer
for City of Atlantis, their new city-building survival game. Within the trailer,
SuperIndie showcases dramatic and stunning gameplay along with gorgeous
graphics befitting of cinematics. The twist is, those graphics are the gameplay
graphics!

Key
art of SuperIndie Games' city-building survival indie game, City of Atlantis. This
art depicts an aerial view of Atlantis itself.

In City of Atlantis, you take the reigns governing the not-so-lost city, improving
infrastructure and architecture, protecting it from invaders, and perfecting

43
Atlantis all the while. The city's role on Earth is to preserve all recorded human
knowledge within it, and as such you must protect its scribes and keepers from
harm while sending out heroic journeymen of your own to learn more from
various other cultures.

A beautiful isometric screenshot from SuperIndie Games' city-building survival

game, City of Atlantis.

Some goals of this indie game include the following, according to SuperIndie
Games' press release:CHAIN OF PRODUCTION: City management is Key. Plan
the expansion in a way that will ensure maximum efficiency of production
chains and transportation.

ENSURE SURVIVAL: Atlantis must not fall. Defend your city from tsunamis
and invaders.

GATHER AND PRESERVE KNOWLEDGE: The city of Atlantis has a mission. It

must discover and preserve the knowledge of the world. Train and equip heroes
who will travel across the land and gather knowledge about culture, history,
law, art, and science.

MANAGE THE POPULATION: The life of the keepers of Atlantis is priceless.

Make sure that their work is not interrupted and they are protected from harm.

A dramatic screenshot from City of Atlantis by SuperIndie Games, wherein a tsunami is fast approaching
and the player must think fast to avert the devastation of the city

In the Atlantic Ocean

The location of Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean has a certain appeal given the
closely related names. Popular culture often places Atlantis there, perpetuating
the original Platonic setting as they understand it. The Canary
Islands and Madeira Islands have been identified as a possible location west of

44
the Straits of Gibraltar, but in relative proximity to the Mediterranean Sea.
Detailed studies of their geomorphology and geology have demonstrated,
however, that they have been steadily uplifted, without any significant periods
of subsidence, over the last four million years, by geologic processes such as
erosional unloading, gravitational unloading, lithospheric flexure induced by
adjacent islands, and volcanic underplating.

Various islands or island groups in the Atlantic were also identified as possible
locations, notably the Azores. Similarly, cores of sediment covering the ocean
bottom surrounding the Azores and other evidence demonstrate that it has
been an undersea plateau for millions of years.[91][92] The area is known for its
volcanism however, which is associated with rifting along the Azores Triple
Junction. The spread of the crust along the existing faults and fractures has
produced many volcanic and seismic events.[93] The area is supported by a
buoyant upwelling in the deeper mantle, which some associate with an Azores
hotspot.[94] Most of the volcanic activity has occurred primarily along
the Terceira Rift. From the beginning of the islands' settlement, around the
15th century, there have been about 30 volcanic eruptions (terrestrial and
submarine) as well as numerous, powerful earthquakes. The island of São
Miguel in the Azores is the site of the Sete Cidades volcano and caldera, which
are the byproducts of historical volcanic activity in the Azores.
The submerged island of Spartel near the Strait of Gibraltar has also been
suggested.[97]

Ancient versions

45
 A Faroe Islands postage stamp honoring Janus Djurhuus' "Atlantis"RIGHTA fragment
of Atlantis by Hellanicus of Lesbos

In order to give his account of Atlantis verisimilitude, Plato mentions that the
story was heard by Solon in Egypt, and transmitted orally over several
generations through the family of Dropides, until it reached Critias, a dialogue
speaker in Timaeus and Critias.] Solon had supposedly tried to adapt the
Atlantis oral tradition into a poem (that if published, was to be greater than the
works of Hesiod and Homer). While it was never completed, Solon passed on
the story to Dropides. Modern classicists deny the existence of Solon's Atlantis
poem and the story as an oral tradition. Instead, Plato is thought to be the sole
inventor or fabricator. Hellanicus of Lesbos used the word "Atlantis" as the title
for a poem published before Plato, a fragment of which may
be Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 11, 1359.] This work only describes the Atlantides
(the daughters of Atlas), however, and has no relation to Plato's Atlantis
account.

In the new era, the third century AD Neoplatonist Zoticus wrote an epic poem
based on Plato's account of Atlantis.[119] Plato's work may already have
inspired parodic imitation, however. Writing only a few decades after
the Timaeus and Critias, the historian Theopompus of Chios wrote of a land
beyond the ocean known as Meropis. This description was included in Book 8
of his Philippica, which contains a dialogue between Silenus and King Midas.
Silenus describes the Meropids, a race of men who grow to twice normal size,
and inhabit two cities on the island of Meropis: Eusebes (Εὐσεβής, "Pious-
town") and Machimos (Μάχιμος, "Fighting-town"). He also reports that an army

46
of ten million soldiers crossed the ocean to conquer Hyperborea, but
abandoned this proposal when they realized that the Hyperboreans were the
luckiest people on earth. Heinz-Günther Nesselrath has argued that these and
other details of Silenus' story are meant as imitation and exaggeration of the
Atlantis story, by parody, for the purpose of exposing Plato's ideas to ridicule.

Utopias and dystopias

The creation of Utopian and dystopian fictions was renewed after the
Renaissance, most notably in Francis Bacon's New Atlantis (1627), the
description of an ideal society that he located off the western coast of America.
Thomas Heyrick (1649-1694) followed him with "The New Atlantis" (1687), a
satirical poem in three parts. His new continent of uncertain location, perhaps
even a floating island either in the sea or the sky, serves as background for his
exposure of what he described in a second edition as "A True Character of
Popery and Jesuitism".

The title of The New Atalantis by Delarivier Manley (1709), distinguished from
the two others by the single letter, is an equally dystopian work but set this
time on a fictional Mediterranean island. In it sexual violence and exploitation
is made a metaphor for the hypocritical behaviour of politicians in their
dealings with the general public. In Manley's case, the target of satire was
the Whig Party, while in David Maclean Parry's The Scarlet Empire (1906) it
is Socialism as practised in foundered Atlantis. It was followed in Russia
by Velemir Khlebnikov's poem The Fall of Atlantis (Gibel' Atlantidy, 1912),
which is set in a future rationalist dystopia that has discovered the secret of
immortality and is so dedicated to progress that it has lost touch with the past.
When the high priest of this ideology is tempted by a slave girl into an act of
irrationality, he murders her and precipitates a second flood, above which her
severed head floats vengefully among the stars.

A slightly later work, The Ancient of Atlantis (Boston, 1915) by Albert Armstrong
Manship, expounds the Atlantean wisdom that is to redeem the earth. Its three
parts consist of a verse narrative of the life and training of an Atlantean wise
one, followed by his Utopian moral teachings and then a psychic drama set in
modern times in which a reincarnated child embodying the lost wisdom is
reborn on earth.

In Hispanic eyes, Atlantis had a more intimate interpretation. The land had
been a colonial power which, although it had brought civilization to ancient
Europe, had also enslaved its peoples. Its tyrannical fall from grace had
contributed to the fate that had overtaken it, but now its disappearance had
unbalanced the world. This was the point of view of Jacint Verdaguer's vast
mythological epic L'Atlantida (1877). After the sinking of the former continent,
Hercules travels east across the Atlantic to found the city of Barcelona and
then departs westward again to the Hesperides. The story is told by a hermit to

47
a shipwrecked mariner, who is inspired to follow in his tracks and so "call the
New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old". This mariner, of
course, was Christopher Columbus.

Verdaguer's poem was written in Catalan, but was widely translated in both
Europe and Hispano-America.[128] One response was the similarly entitled
Argentinian Atlantida of Olegario Victor Andrade (1881), which sees in
"Enchanted Atlantis that Plato foresaw, a golden promise to the fruitful race" of
Latins.[129] The bad example of the colonising world remains, however. Jose
Juan Tablada characterises its threat in his "De Atlántida" (1894) through the
beguiling picture of the lost world populated by the underwater creatures of
Classical myth, among whom is the Siren of its final stanza with:

her eye on the keel of the wandering vessel

that in passing deflowers the sea's smooth mirror,
launching into the night her amorous warbling
and the dulcet lullaby of her treacherous voice!

There is a similar ambivalence in Janus Djurhuus' six-stanza "Atlantis" (1917),

where a celebration of the Faroese linguistic revival grants it an ancient
pedigree by linking Greek to Norse legend. In the poem a female figure rising
from the sea against a background of Classical palaces is recognised as a
priestess of Atlantis. The poet recalls "that the Faroes lie there in the north
Atlantic Ocean/ where before lay the poet-dreamt lands," but also that in Norse
belief, such a figure only appears to those about to drown.

A land lost in the distance

The fact that Atlantis is a lost land has made of it a metaphor for something no
longer attainable. For the American poet Edith Willis Linn Forbes (1865-1945),
"The Lost Atlantis" stands for idealisation of the past; the present moment can
only be treasured once that is realised. Ella Wheeler Wilcox finds the location of
"The Lost Land" (1910) in one's carefree youthful past. Similarly, for the Irish
poet Eavan Boland in "Atlantis, a lost sonnet" (2007), the idea was defined
when "the old fable-makers searched hard for a word/ to convey that what is
gone is gone forever".
For some male poets too, the idea of Atlantis is constructed from what cannot
be obtained. Charles Bewley in his Newdigate Prize poem (1910) thinks it grows
from dissatisfaction with one's condition,
And, because life is partly sweet
And ever girt about with pain,
We take the sweetness, and are fain
To set it free from grief's alloy
in a dream of Atlantis.

Similarly for the Australian Gary Catalano in a 1982 prose poem, it is "a vision
that sank under the weight of its own perfection".[136] W. H. Auden, however,
48
suggests a way out of such frustration through the metaphor of journeying
toward Atlantis in his poem of 1941.] While travelling, he advises the one
setting out, you will meet with many definitions of the goal in view, only
realising at the end that the way has all the time led inward.

Epic narratives
A few late-19th century verse narratives complement the genre fiction that was
beginning to be written at the same period. Two of them report the disaster
that overtook the continent as related by long-lived survivors. In Frederick
Tennyson's Atlantis (1888), an ancient Greek mariner sails west and discovers
an inhabited island which is all that remains of the former kingdom. He learns
of its end and views the shattered remnant of its former glory, from which a few
had escaped to set up the Mediterranean civilisations.

In the second, Mona, Queen of Lost Atlantis: An Idyllic Re-embodiment of Long

Forgotten History (Los Angeles CA 1925) by James Logue Dryden (1840–1925),
the story is told in a series of visions. A Seer is taken to Mona's burial chamber
in the ruins of Atlantis, where she revives and describes the catastrophe. There
follows a survey of the lost civilisations of Hyperborea and Lemuria as well as
Atlantis, accompanied by much spiritualist lore.

William Walton Hoskins (1856–1919) admits to the readers of his Atlantis and
other poems (Cleveland OH, 1881), that he is only 24. Its melodramatic plot
concerns the poisoning of the descendant of god-born kings. The usurping
poisoner is poisoned in his turn, following which the continent is swallowed in
the waves.[141] Asian gods people the landscape of The Lost Island (Ottawa
1889) by Edward Taylor Fletcher (1816–97). An angel foresees impending
catastrophe and that the people will be allowed to escape if their semi-divine
rulers will sacrifice themselves. A final example, Edward N. Beecher's The Lost
Atlantis or The Great Deluge of All (Cleveland OH, 1898) is just a doggerel
vehicle for its author's opinions: that the continent was the location of the
Garden of Eden; that Darwin's theory of evolution is correct, as are Donnelly's
views.

Atlantis was to become a theme in Russia following the 1890s, taken up in

unfinished poems by Valery Bryusov and Konstantin Balmont, as well as in a
drama by the schoolgirl Larisa Reisner.[144] One other long narrative poem was
published in New York by George V. Golokhvastoff. His 250-page The Fall of
Atlantis (1938) records how a high priest, distressed by the prevailing
degeneracy of the ruling classes, seeks to create an androgynous being from
royal twins as a means to overcome this polarity. When he is unable to control
the forces unleashed by his occult ceremony, the continent is destroyed.[145]

Music

49
The Spanish composer Manuel de Falla worked on a dramatic cantata based on
Verdaguer's L'Atlántida, during the last 20 years of his life. The name has been
affixed to symphonies by Janis Ivanovs (1941), Richard Nanes,[148] and Vaclav
Buzek (2009). There was also the symphonic celebration of Alan Hovhaness:
"Fanfare for the New Atlantis" (Op. 281, 1975).

The Bohemian-American composer and arranger Vincent Frank

Safranek wrote Atlantis (The Lost Continent) Suite in Four Parts; I. Nocturne and
Morning Hymn of Praise, II. A Court Function, III. "I Love Thee" (The Prince and
Aana), IV. The Destruction of Atlantis, for military (concert) band in 1913.

Painting and sculpture

François de Nomé's The Fall of Atlantis// Nicholas Roerich's The Last

of Atlantis

50
 Léon Bakst's vision of cosmic catastrophe

Athanasius Kircher's map

of Atlantis, placing it in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, from Mundus
Subterraneus 1669, published in Amsterdam. The map is oriented
with south at the top.
Athanasius Kircher (2 May 1602 – 27 November 1680) was a
German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works,
most notably in the fields of comparative religion, geology, and medicine.
Kircher has been compared to fellow Jesuit Roger Joseph Boscovich and
to Leonardo da Vinci for his enormous range of interests, and has been
honoured with the title "Master of a Hundred Arts".[2] He taught for more than
40 years at the Roman College, where he set up a wunderkammer. A
resurgence of interest in Kircher has occurred within the scholarly community
in recent decades.’

Kircher claimed to have deciphered the hieroglyphic writing of the

ancient Egyptian language, but most of his assumptions and translations in
this field were later found to be incorrect. He did, however, correctly establish
the link between the ancient Egyptian and the Coptic languages, and some
51
commentators regard him as the founder of Egyptology. Kircher was also
fascinated with Sinology and wrote an encyclopedia of China, in which he
noted the early presence there of Nestorian Christians while also attempting to
establish links with Egypt and Christianity.

Kircher's work in geology included studies of volcanoes and fossils. One of the
first people to observe microbes through a microscope, Kircher was ahead of
his time in proposing that the plague was caused by an
infectious microorganism and in suggesting effective measures to prevent the
spread of the disease. Kircher also displayed a keen interest in technology and
mechanical inventions; inventions attributed to him include a magnetic clock,
various automatons and the first megaphone. The invention of the magic
lantern is often misattributed to Kircher, although he did conduct a study of
the principles involved in his Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae.

A scientific star in his day, towards the end of his life he was eclipsed by
the rationalism of René Descartes and others. In the late 20th century,
however, the aesthetic qualities of his work again began to be appreciated. One
modern scholar, Alan Cutler, described Kircher as "a giant among seventeenth-
century scholars", and "one of the last thinkers who could rightfully claim all
knowledge as his domain". Another scholar, Edward W. Schmidt, referred to
Kircher as "the last Renaissance man". In A Man of Misconceptions, his 2012
book about Kircher, John Glassie writes that while "many of Kircher's actual
ideas today seem wildly off-base, if not simply bizarre,"[5] he was "a champion of
wonder, a man of awe-inspiring erudition and inventiveness," whose work was
read "by the smartest minds of the time.

52
 CHAPTER VI
Kumari Kandam

In Tamil mythology, Kumari Kandam is a mythical continent, believed to be

lost with an ancient Tamil civilization, supposedly located south of present-
day India in the Indian Ocean. Alternative names and spellings
include Kumarikkandam and Kumari Nadu.

In the 19th century, some European and American scholars speculated the
existence of a submerged continent called Lemuria to explain geological and
other similarities between Africa, Australia, the Indian
subcontinent and Madagascar. A section of Tamil revivalists adapted this
theory, connecting it to the Pandyan legends of lands lost to the ocean, as
described in ancient Tamil and Sanskrit literature. According to these writers,
an ancient Tamil civilisation existed on Lemuria, before it was lost to the sea in
a catastrophe.

In the 20th century, the Tamil writers started using the name Kumari
Kandam to describe this submerged continent. Although the Lemuria theory
was later rendered obsolete by the continental drift (plate tectonics) theory, the
concept remained popular among Tamil revivalists of the 20th century.
According to them, Kumari Kandam was the place where the first two Tamil

53
literary academies (sangams) were organised during the Pandyan reign. They
claimed Kumari Kandam as the cradle of civilisation to prove the antiquity of
the Tamil language and culture.

When the Tamil writers were introduced to the concept of Lemuria in the
1890s, they came up with the Tamilized versions of the continent's name (e.g.
"Ilemuria"). By the early 1900s, they started using Tamil names for the
continent, to support their depiction of Lemuria as an ancient Tamil
civilization. In 1903, V.G. Suryanarayana Sastri first used the term
"Kumarinatu" (or "Kumari Nadu", meaning "Kumari territory") in his work Tamil
Mozhiyin Varalaru (History of the Tamil language). The term Kumari Kandam
("Kumari continent") was first used to describe Lemuria in the 1930s.

The words "Kumari Kandam" first appear in Kanda Puranam, a 15th-century

Tamil version of the Skanda Purana, written by Kachiappa Sivacharyara (1350–
1420). Although the Tamil revivalists insist that it is a pure Tamil name, it is
actually a derivative of the Sanskrit word "Kumārika Khaṇḍa.
The Andakosappadalam section of Kanda Puranam describes the
following cosmological model of the universe: There are many worlds, each
having several continents, which in turn, have several kingdoms. Paratan, the
ruler of one such kingdom, had eight sons and one daughter. He further
divided his kingdom into nine parts, and the part ruled by his daughter Kumari
came to be known as Kumari Kandam after her. Kumari Kandam is described
as the kingdom of the Earth. Although the Kumari Kandam theory became
popular among anti-Brahmin, anti-Sanskrit Tamil nationalists, the Kanda
Puranam actually describes Kumari Kandam as the land where
the Brahmins reside, where Shiva is worshipped and where the Vedas are
recited. The rest of the kingdoms are described as the territory of the mlecchas.

The 20th-century Tamil writers came up with various theories to explain the
etymology of "Kumari Kandam" or "Kumari Nadu". One set of claims was
centered on the purported gender egalitarianism in the prelapsarian Tamil
homeland. For example, M. Arunachalam (1944) claimed that the land was
ruled by female rulers (Kumaris). D. Savariroyan Pillai stated that the women of
the land had the right to choose their husbands and owned all the property
because of which the land came to be known as "Kumari Nadu" ("the land of
the maiden"). Yet another set of claims was centered on the Hindu
goddess Kanya Kumari. Kandiah Pillai, in a book for children, fashioned a new
history for the goddess, stating that the land was named after her. He claimed
that the temple at Kanyakumari was established by those who survived the
flood that submerged Kumari Kandam. According to cultural historian Sumathi
Ramaswamy, the emphasis of the Tamil writers on the word "Kumari" (meaning
virgin or maiden) symbolizes the purity of Tamil language and culture, before
their contacts with the other ethnic groups such as the Indo-Aryans.

54
The Tamil writers also came up with several other names for the lost continent.
In 1912, Somasundara Bharati first used the word "Tamilakam" (a name for
the ancient Tamil country) to cover the concept of Lemuria, presenting it as
the cradle of civilization, in his Tamil Classics and Tamilakam. Another name
used was "Pandiya nadu", after the Pandyas, regarded as the oldest of the
Tamil dynasties. Some writers used "Navalan Tivu" (or Navalam Island), the
Tamil name of Jambudvipa, to describe the submerged land.

Submerged Lands in ancient Sanskrit Literature

Multiple ancient and medieval Tamil and Sanskrit works contain legendary
accounts of lands in South India being lost to the ocean. The earliest explicit
discussion of a katalkol ("seizure by ocean", possibly tsunami) of Pandyan land
is found in a commentary on Iraiyanar Akapporul. This commentary, attributed
to Nakkeerar, is dated to the later centuries of the 1st millennium CE. It
mentions that the Pandyan kings, an early Tamil dynasty, established three
literary academies (Sangams): the first Sangam flourished for 4,400 years in a
city called Tenmadurai (South Madurai) attended by 549 poets
(including Agastya) and presided over by gods like Shiva, Kubera and Murugan.
The second Sangam lasted for 3,700 years in a city called Kapatapuram,
attended by 59 poets (including Agastya, again). The commentary states that
both the cities were "seized by the ocean", resulting in loss of all the works
created during the first two Sangams. The third Sangam was established
in Uttara (North) Madurai, where it is said to have lasted for 1,850 years.[7][8][9]
Nakkeerar's commentary does not mention the size of the territory lost to the
sea. The size is first mentioned in a 15th-century commentary
on Silappatikaram. The commentator Adiyarkunallar mentions that the lost
land extended from Pahruli river in the north to the Kumari river in the South.
It was located to the south of Kanyakumari, and covered an area of
700 kavatam (a unit of unknown measurement). It was divided into 49
territories (natu), classified in the following seven categories:[9]
 Elu teñku natu ("Seven coconut lands")
 Elu Maturai natu ("Seven mango lands")
 Elu munpalai natu ("Seven front sandy lands")
 Elu pinpalai natu ("Seven back sandy lands")
 Elu kunra natu ("Seven hilly lands")
 Elu kunakarai natu ("Seven coastal lands")
 Elu kurumpanai natu ("Seven dwarf-palm lands")

Other medieval writers, such as Ilampuranar and Perasiriyar, also make stray
references to the loss of antediluvian lands to the south of Kanyakumari, in
their commentaries on ancient texts like Tolkappiyam. Another legend about
the loss of Pandyan territory to the sea is found in scattered verses
of Purananuru (dated between 1st century BCE and 5th century CE)
and Kaliththokai (6th–7th century CE).According to this account, the Pandyan

55
king compensated the loss of his land by seizing an equivalent amount of land
from the neighboring kingdoms of Cheras and Cholas.]

There are also several other ancient accounts of non-Pandyan land lost to the
sea. Many Tamil Hindu shrines have legendary accounts of surviving the floods
mentioned in Hindu mythology. These include the prominent temples
of Kanyakumari, Kanchipuram, Kumbakonam, Madurai, Sirkazhi and Tiruvotti
yur.[12] There are also legends of temples submerged under the sea, such as
the Seven Pagodas of Mahabalipuram, the remains of which were discovered
after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. The Puranas place the
beginning of the most popular Hindu flood myth – the legend of Manu – in
South India. The Sanskrit-language Bhagavata Purana (dated 500 BCE–1000
CE) describes its protagonist Manu (aka Satyavrata) as the Lord
of Dravida (South India). The Matsya Purana (dated 250–500 CE) also begins
with Manu practicing tapas on Mount Malaya of South
India.[14] Manimeghalai (dated around 6th century CE) mentions that the
ancient Chola port city of Kaverippumpattinam (present-day Puhar) was
destroyed by a flood. It states that this flood was sent by the Hindu deity Indra,
because the king forgot to celebrate a festival dedicated to him.

None of these ancient texts or their medieval commentaries use the name
"Kumari Kandam" or "Kumari Nadu" for the land purportedly lost to the sea.
They do not state that the land lost by the sea was a whole continent located to
the south of Kanyakumari. Nor do they link the loss of this land to the history
of Tamil people as a community.

HYPOTHESES
In 1864, the English zoologist Philip Sclater hypothesized the existence of a
submerged land connection between India, Madagascar and continental Africa.
He named this submerged land Lemuria, as the concept had its origins in his
attempts to explain the presence of lemur-like primates (strepsirrhini) on these
three disconnected lands. Before the Lemuria hypothesis was rendered obsolete
by the continental drift theory, a number of scholars supported and expanded
it. The concept was introduced to the Indian readers in an 1873 physical
geography textbook by Henry Francis Blanford. According to Blanford, the
landmass had submerged due to volcanic activity during
the Cretaceous period. In late 1870s, the Lemuria theory found its first
proponents in the present-day Tamil Nadu, when the leaders of the Adyar-
headquartered Theosophical Society wrote about it (see the root race theory).

Most European and American geologists dated Lemuria's disappearance to a

period before the emergence of modern humans. Thus, according to them,
Lemuria could not have hosted an ancient civilization. However, in 1885,
the Indian Civil Service officer Charles D. Maclean published The Manual of the

56
Administration of the Madras Presidency, in which he theorized Lemuria as
the proto-Dravidian urheimat. In a footnote in this work, he mentioned Ernst
Haeckel's Asia hypothesis, which theorized that the humans originated in a
land now submerged in the Indian Ocean. Maclean added that this submerged
land was the homeland of the proto-Dravidians. He also suggested that the
progenitors of the other races must have migrated from Lemuria to other places
via South India. This theory was also cursorily discussed by other colonial
officials like Edgar Thurston and Herbert Hope Risley, including in
the census reports of 1891 and 1901. Later, Maclean's manual came to be
cited as an authoritative work by the Tamil writers, who often wrongly referred
to him as a "scientist" and a "Doctor".

The native Tamil intellectuals first started discussing the concept of a

submerged Tamil homeland in the late 1890s. In 1898, J. Nallasami Pillai
published an article in the philosophical-literary journal Siddhanta
Deepika (aka The Truth of Light). He wrote about the theory of a lost continent
in the Indian Ocean (i.e. Lemuria), mentioning that the Tamil legends speak of
floods which destroyed the literary works produced during the ancient
sangams. However, he also added that this theory had "no serious historical or
scientific footing".
Popularization in Tamil Nadu[edit]
In the 1920s, the Lemuria concept was popularized by the Tamil revivalists to
counter the dominance of Indo-Aryans and Sanskrit.[23] Tamil revivalist writers
claimed that Lemuria, prior to its deluge, was the original Tamil homeland and
birthplace of Tamil civilization. They often misquoted or miscited the words of
Western scholars to grant credibility to their assertions.[24] During the British
era, the loss of small patches of lands to cyclones was cataloged in several
district reports, gazetteers, and other documents. The Tamil writers of the
period cited these as evidence supporting the theory about an ancient land lost
to the sea.[9]
In curriculum[edit]
The books discussing the Kumari Kandam theory were first included in the
college curriculum of the present-day Tamil Nadu in 1908. Suryanarayana
Sastri's book was prescribed for use in Madras University's Master's degree
courses in 1908-09. Over the next few decades, other such works were also
included in the curriculum of Madras University and Annamalai University.
These include Purnalingam Pillai's A Primer of Tamil Literature (1904) and Tamil
literature (1929), Kandiah Pillai's Tamilakam (1934), and Srinivasa Pillai's Tamil
Varalaru (1927).[25] In a 1940 Tamil language textbook for ninth-grade
students, T. V. Kalyanasundaram wrote that Lemuria of the European scholars
was Kumarinatu of the Tamil literature.[26]
After the Dravidian parties came to power in the 1967 Madras State elections,
the Kumari Kandam theory was disseminated more widely through school and
college textbooks.[27] In 1971, the Government of Tamil Nadu established a
formal committee to write the history of Tamilakam (ancient Tamil territory).

57
The state education minister R. Nedunceliyan declared in the Legislative
Assembly that by "history", he meant "from the time of Lemuria that was seized
by the ocean".

In 1971, the Government of Tamil Nadu constituted a committee of historians

and litterateurs, headed by M. Varadarajan. One of the objectives of the
committee was to highlight "the great antiquity" of the Tamils. A 1975 textbook
written by this committee detailed the Kumari Kandam theory, stating that it
was supported by "the foremost geologists, ethnologists, and
anthropologists". As late as 1981, the Tamil Nadu government's history
textbooks mentioned the Kumari Kandam theory.

Tamil writers characterized Kumari Kandam as an ancient, but highly

advanced civilization located in an isolated continent in the Indian Ocean. They
also described it as the cradle of civilization inhabited solely by the speakers of
Tamil language. The following sections describe these characteristics in detail.

Isolated
Kumari Kandam is theorized as an isolated (both temporally and
geographically) land mass. Geographically, it was located in the Indian Ocean.
Temporally, it was a very ancient civilization. Many Tamil writers do not assign
any date to the submergence of Kumari Kandam, resorting to phrases like
"once upon a time" or "several thousands of years ago". Those who do, vary
greatly, ranging from 30,000 BCE to the 3rd century BCE.[32] Several other
writers state that the land was progressively lost to the sea over a period of
thousands of years. In 1991, R. Mathivanan, then Chief Editor of the Tamil
Etymological Dictionary Project of the Government of Tamil Nadu, claimed that
the Kumari Kandam civilization flourished around 50,000 BCE, and the
continent submerged around 16,000 BCE. This theory was based on the
methodology recommended by his teacher Devaneya Pavanar.

The isolation resulted in the possibility of describing Kumari Kandam as a

utopian society insulated from external influences and foreign corruption.
Unlike its description in the Kanda Puranam, the Tamil revivalists depicted
Kumari Kandam as a place free of the upper-caste Brahmins, who had come to
be identified as descendants of Indo-Aryans during the Dravidian movement.
The non-utopian practices of the 20th century Tamil Hindu society, such
as superstitions and caste-based discrimination, were all described as
corruption resulting from Indo-Aryan influence.

A land lost to the ocean also helped the Tamil revivalists provide an
explanation for the lack of historically verifiable or scientifically acceptable
material evidence about this ancient civilization. The earliest extant Tamil
writings, which are attributed to the third Sangam, contain Sanskrit
vocabulary, and thus could not have been the creation of a purely Tamil
civilization. Connecting the concept of Lemuria to an ancient Tamil civilization
58
allowed the Tamil revivalists to portray a society completely free of Indo-Aryan
influence.[2] They could claim that the various signs of the ancient Tamil
civilization had been lost in the deep ocean. The later dominance of Sanskrit
was offered as another explanation for the deliberate destruction of ancient
Tamil works.[33] In the 1950s, R. Nedunceliyan, who later became Tamil Nadu's
education minister, published a pamphlet called Marainta Tiravitam ("Lost
Dravidian land"). He insisted that the Brahmin historians, being biased
towards Sanskrit, had deliberately kept the knowledge of the Tamil's greatness
hidden from the public

Connected with South India

The Kumari Kandam proponents laid great emphasis on stating that

the Kanyakumari city was a part of the original Kumari Kandam. Some of them
also argued that entire Tamil Nadu, entire Indian peninsula (south
of Vindhyas) or even entire India were a part of Kumari Kandam. This helped
ensure that the modern Tamils could be described as both indigenous people of
South India and the direct descendants of the people of Kumari Kandam. This,
in turn, allowed them to describe the Tamil language and culture as the world's
oldest.

During British Raj, Kanyakumari was a part of the Travancore state, most of
which was merged to the newly-formed Kerala state after the 1956
reorganization. The Tamil politicians made a concerted effort to ensure that
Kanyakumari was incorporated into the Tamil-majority Madras
State (now Tamil Nadu). Kanyakumari's purported connection with Kumari
Kandam was one of the reasons for this effort.

Cradle of civilization
According to the Kumari Kandam proponents, the continent was submerged
when the last ice age ended and the sea levels rose. The Tamil people then
migrated to other lands, and mixed with the other groups, leading to the
formation of new races, languages and civilizations. Some also theorize that the
entire humanity is descended from the inhabitants of Kumari Kandam. Both
narratives agree on the point that the Tamil culture is the source of all civilized
culture in the world, and Tamil is the mother language of all other languages in
the world. According to the most versions, the original culture of Kumari
Kandam survived in Tamil Nadu.

As early as 1903, Suryanarayana Sastri, in his Tamilmoliyin Varalaru, insisted

that all the humans were descendants of the ancient Tamils from Kumari
Kandam. Such claims were repeated by several others, including M. S.
Purnalingam Pillai and Maraimalai Adigal.[38] In 1917, Abraham
Pandithar wrote that Lemuria was the cradle of human race, and Tamil was the
first language spoken by the humans. These claims were repeated in the school
and college textbooks of Tamil Nadu throughout the 20th century.[39]
59
M. S. Purnalingam Pillai, writing in 1927, stated that Indus Valley
Civilization was established by the Tamil survivors from the flood-hit Kumari
Nadu. In the 1940s, N. S. Kandiah Pillai published maps showing migration of
the Kumari Kandam residents to other parts of the world.[40][41] In 1953, R.
Nedunceliyan, who later became the education minister of Tamil Nadu, insisted
that the civilization spread from South India to the Indus Valley and Sumer,
and subsequently, to "Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Spain and other
places".[42] They presented modern Tamil as a pale remnant of the glorious
ancient Tamil language spoken in Kumari Kandam.

Some Tamil writers also claimed that the Indo-Aryans were also descendants of
proto-Dravidians of Kumari Kandam. According to this theory, these Indo-
Aryans belonged to a branch which migrated to Central Asia and then returned
to India. Similar explanations were used to reconcile the popular theory that
proto-Dravidians migrated to India from the Mediterranean region. A 1975
Government of Tamil Nadu college text book stated that the Dravidians of
Kumari Kandam had migrated to the Mediterranean region after the
submergence of their continent; later, they migrated back to India via
the Himalayan passes.

Primordial but not primitive

The Tamil revivalists did not consider Kumari Kandam as a primitive society or
a rural civilization. Instead, they described it as a utopia which had reached
the zenith of human achievement, and where people lived a life devoted to
learning, education, travel and commerce. Sumanthi Ramaswamy notes that
this "placemaking" of Kumari Kandam was frequently intended as a teaching
tool, meant to inspire the modern Tamils to pursue excellence. But this pre-
occupation with "civilization" was also a response to the British rulers'
projection of the Europeans as more civilized than the Tamils.

Suryanarayan Sastri, in 1903, described the antediluvian Tamils as expert

cultivators, fine poets and far-traveling merchants, who lived in an egalitarian
and democratic society. Savariroyan Pillai, writing a few years later, described
Kumari Kandam as a seat of learning and culture. Sivagnana Yogi (1840-1924)
stated that this ancient society was free of any caste system. Kandiah Pillai, in
a 1945 work for children, wrote that Kumarikandam was ruled by a strong and
just emperor called Sengon, who organized the sangams. In 1981, the
Government of Tamil Nadu funded a documentary film on Kumari Kandam.
The film, personally backed by the Chief Minister M. G. Ramachandran and
directed by P. Neelakantan, was screened at the Fifth International Conference
of Tamil Studies in Madurai. It combined the continental drift theory with the
submerged continent theory to present Lemuria as a scientifically valid
concept. It depicted Kumari Kandam cities resplendent with mansions,
gardens, arts, crafts, music and dance.

60
Alleged lost works
The Tamil revivalists insisted that the first two Tamil sangams (literary
academies) were not mythical, and happened in the Kumari Kandam era. While
most Tamil revivalists did not enumerate or list the lost Sangam works, some
came up with their names, and even listed their contents. In 1903,
Suryanarayana Sastri named some of these works
as Mutunarai, Mutukuruku, Mapuranam and Putupuranam. In 1917, Abraham
Pandithar listed three of these works as the world's first treatises of
music: Naratiyam, Perunarai and Perunkuruku. He also listed several rare
musical instruments such as the thousand-stringed lute, which had been lost
to the sea. Devaneya Pavanar printed an entire list of the submerged books.
Others listed books on a wide range of topics, including medicine, martial arts,
logic, painting, sculpture, yoga, philosophy, music, mathematics, alchemy,
magic, architecture, poetry, and wealth. Since these works had been lost to the
sea, the Kumari Kandam proponents insisted that no empirical proof could be
provided for their claims.

In 1902, Chidambaranar published a book called Cenkonraraiccelavu, claiming

that he had 'discovered' the manuscript from "some old cudgan [sic] leaves".
The book was presented as a lost-and-found work of the first Sangam at
Tenmadurai. The author of the poem was styled as Mutaluli Centan Taniyur
("Chentan who lived in Taniyur before the first deluge"). The work talked about
the exploits of an antediluvian Tamil king Sengon, who ruled the now-
submerged kingdom of Peruvalanatu, the region between the rivers Kumari and
Pahruli. According to Chidambaranar, Sengon was a native of Olinadu, which
was located south of the Equator; the king maintained several battleships and
conquered lands as far as Tibet. In 1950s, Cenkonraraiccelavu was declared as
a forgery by S. Vaiyapuri Pillai. However, this did not stop the Tamil revivalists
from invoking the text. The 1981 documentary funded by Government of Tamil
Nadu declared it as the "world's first travelogue"

The medieval commentator Adiyarkunallar stated that the size of the land
south of Kanyakumari, lost to the sea was 700 kavatam. The modern
equivalent of kavatam is not known.[48] In 1905, Arasan Shanmugham Pillai
wrote that this land amounted to thousands of miles.[49] According to
Purnalingam Pillai and Suryanarayana Sastri, the number was equivalent to
7000 miles.[50] Others, such as Abraham Pandither, Aiyan Aarithan, Devaneyan
and Raghava Aiyangar offered estimates ranging from 1,400 to 3,000
miles.[51] According to U. V. Swaminatha Iyer, only the land amounting in area
to only a few villages (equivalent to the Tamil measure of two kurram) was lost.
In 1903, Suryanarayana Sastri suggested that Kumari Kandam extended from
the present-day Kanyakumari in North to Kerguelen Islands in South, and
from Madagascar in the West to Sunda Islands in the East. In 1912,
Somasundara Bharati wrote that the continent

61
touched China, Africa, Australia and Kanyakumari on four sides. In
1948, Maraimalai Adigal stated that the continent stretched as far as the South
Pole. Somasundara Bharati offered an estimate of 6000–7000 miles.

Maps

The first map to visualize Lemuria as an ancient Tamil territory was published
by S. Subramania Sastri in 1916, in the journal Centamil. This map was
actually part of an article that criticized the pseudohistorical claims about a
lost continent. Sastri insisted that the lost land mentioned in Adiyarkunallar's
records was barely equivalent to a taluka (not larger than a few hundred
square miles). The map depicted two different versions of Kumari Kandam: that
of Sastri, and that of A. Shanmugam Pillai (see above). The lost land was
depicted as a peninsula, similar to the present-day Indian peninsula.[53]
In 1927, Purnalingam Pillai published a map titled "Puranic India before the
Deluges", in which he labeled the various places of Kumari Kandam with
names drawn from ancient Tamil and Sanskrit literary works. Pulavar
Kulanthai, in his 1946 map, was first to depict cities like Tenmaturai and
Kapatapuram on the maps of Kumari Kandam. Several maps also depicted the
various mountain ranges and rivers of Kumari Kandam. The most elaborate
cartographic visualization appeared in a 1977 map by R. Mathivanan. This
map showed the 49 nadus mentioned by Adiyarkunallar, and appears in the
Tamil Nadu government's 1981 documentary.

A 1981 map published by N. Mahalingam depicted the lost land as "Submerged

Tamil Nadu" in 30,000 BCE.[55] A 1991 map, created by R. Mathivanan, showed
a land bridge connecting Indian peninsula to Antarctica. A few Tamil writers
also depicted Gondwanaland as Kumari Kandam.

Kumari Kandam is a mythical continent

Kumari Kandam is a mythical continent, and therefore, the attempts to mix
this myth with Tamil history have attracted criticism since the late 19th
century.[57] One of the earliest criticisms came from M Seshagiri Sastri (1897),
who described the claims of ante-diluvial sangams as "a mere fiction originated
by the prolific imagination of Tamil poets."] CH Monahan wrote a scathing
review of Suryanarayana Sastri's Tamilmoliyin Varalaru (1903), shortly after its
publication, accusing the author of "abandoning scientific research for
mythology".K. N. Sivaraja Pillai (1932) similarly stressed on the need to closely
examine the historical authenticity of Sangam works and their commentaries.\
In 1956, K. A. Nilakanta Sastri described the Kumari Kandam theory as "all
bosh", stating that geological theories about events happening millions of years
ago should not be connected to the human history of a few thousand years
back.[61] Historian N. Subrahmanian, writing in 1966, described the Lemuria
myth as the most characteristic example of "anti-history" in Tamil Nadu.[28] He

62
noted that these myths persisted in the minds of Tamil people despite modern
education.[62] According to him, the land lost to sea, as described in the ancient
Tamil legends, was a small area comparable to a present-day district, and
submerged around 5th or 4th century BCE.

The same view is also shared by historian K. K. Pillay. He writes

... to accept this is not to accept the view that the entire Lemuria
or Gondvana continent existed in the age of the Tamil Sangam, as is sometimes
believed. Some of the writers on the Tamil Sangam might have held that the
first Tamil Academy flourished in South Madurai which according to them lay
to the south of the tip of present South India. This view has been sought to be
reinforced by the Lemurian theory. But it is important to observe that the
Lemurian continent must have existed, if at all, long long ago. According to
geologists, the dismemberment of the Lemurian or Gondvana continent into
several units must have taken place towards the close of the Mesozoic era.[63]

Tamil mythology means the stories and sacred narratives belonging to

the Tamil people. This body of mythology is a mix of elements from the Tamil
culture, Dravidian culture and Indus Valley cultures along with
the Hindu religious aspects.

In an article Underwater World of Pandya Dynasty [Kumari Kandam] it has

been suggested that The ancient Tamil civilization is found here and named the
place as Kumari Kandam. The Kumari Kandam is connected with the India,
Africa and Australia. The American and the European scholars named it as
"Lemuria". The complete Kumari Kandam is ruled by the Pandya Dynasty. So
only they called Kumari Kandam as "Pandya Naadu". The Ancient Kind name
Paratan, had 8 sons and one daughter. He divided his land into 9 parts. Her
name is Kumari. The part ruled by his daughter is named it as Kumari
Kandam. In the 15th Century a poet mentioned Kumari Kandam in his play
"Kandha Puranam". Nowadays we have Kanyakumari, it is also a part of
Kumari Kandam in older days.

63
The 20th-century Tamil writers came up with various theories to explain the
etymology of "Kumari Kandam" or "Kumari Nadu". One set of claims was centered
on the purported gender egalitarianism in the prelapsarian Tamil homeland. For
example, M. Arunachalam (1944) claimed that the land was ruled by female rulers
(Kumaris). D. Savariroyan Pillai stated that the women of the land had the right to

64
choose their husbands and owned all the property because of which the land came
to be known as "Kumari Nadu" ("the land of the maiden"). Yet another set of claims
was centered on the Hindu goddess Kanya Kumari. Kandiah Pillai, in a book for
children, fashioned a new history for the goddess, stating that the land was named
after her. He claimed that the temple at Kanyakumari was established by those
who survived the flood that submerged Kumari Kandam. According to cultural
historian Sumathi Ramaswamy, the emphasis of the Tamil writers on the word
"Kumari" (meaning virgin or maiden) symbolizes the purity of Tamil language and
culture, before their contacts with the other ethnic groups such as the Indo-
Aryans. https://fantasticphotocollection.blogspot.com/2017/02/kumari-kandam-
underwater-world-
kingdom.html?showComment=1630143795009#c5680869680851693391

Pandiya nadu
The Tamil writers also came up with several other names for the lost continent. In
1912, Somasundara Bharati first used the word "Tamilakam" (a name for
the ancient Tamil country) to cover the concept of Lemuria, presenting it as
the cradle of civilization, in his Tamil Classics and Tamilakam. Another name used
was "Pandiya nadu", after the Pandyas, regarded as the oldest of the Tamil
dynasties. Some writers used "Navalan Tivu" (or Navalam Island), the Tamil name
of Jambudvipa, to describe the submerged land.

The Early Pandyas of the Sangam period were one of the three main kingdoms of
the ancient Tamil country, the other two being the Cholas, and Cheras Dynasty.
As with many other kingdoms around this period (earlier than 200 BCE), most of
the information about the Early Pandyas come to modern historians mainly
through literary sources and some epigraphic, archaeological and numismatic
evidence. The capital of the Early Pandyan kingdom was
initially Korkai, Thoothukudi[1] and was later moved to Koodal (now Madurai)
during the reign of Nedunjeliyan I.[2] The kingdom lay to the south of the Maurya
Empire of India.
The kings of the Pandyan Dynasty are frequently mentioned in Sangam
literature of the third century BCE and onwards, in literary works such as
the Mathuraikkanci and other early Tamil literary works such as Cilapatikaram,
which have been used by historians to identify their names and, to some extent,
their genealogy. Nedunjeliyan II is referred to as the most popular warrior among
the Early Pandyas, winning a battle at Talaialanganam against a coalition of forces
from Cholas and Cheras and five other kingdoms. The early Pandyan kingdom
extended between Travancore in the west, Vellaru river in the north and all the
way to the ocean in the east and the south.[3]
The Early Pandyas had active maritime trade relationships with the west, a fact
testified by western classical writers such as Pliny the Elder (1st century
CE), Strabo, Ptolemy and the author of the Periplus.[4] The Pandyan country was
well known for pearl fishery, with Korkai being the principal center of the trade.

65
Some of the exports were pearls, spices, ivory and shells, while the imports
included horses, gold, glass and wine.[

Pandya dynasty

Pandya royal insignia (medieval)

Pandyan empire under greatest extent

Capital  Madurai (till 1335

CE)
 Korkai (port, early
historic
 Tenkasi (till 1660
CE)

Official languages  Tamil

Religion Hinduism

Government Monarchy
• 560–590 CE Kadungon
• 1100–1400 CE "Five Pandyas"

Preceded by Succeeded by

66
 Chola Empire Madurai Nayak
dynasty
Delhi Sultanate
Jaffna kingdom
Sambuvaraya

Today part of India

Sri Lanka

The Pandya dynasty, also known as the Pandyas of Madurai, was a dynasty
of south India, one of the three famous Tamil lineages, the other two being
the Chola and the Chera. The dynasty passed through two periods of imperial
dominance, the 6th to 10th centuries CE, and under the 'Later Pandyas' (13th
to 14th centuries CE). The Pandyas ruled extensive territories, at times
including the large portions of present-day south India and northern Sri
Lanka through collateral branches subject to Madurai.

The rulers of the three Tamil dynasties were referred to as the "three crowned
rulers (the mu-ventar) of the Tamil country". The age and the antiquity of the
Pandya dynasty are difficult to establish. The early Pandya chieftains ruled
their country (the Pandya nadu) from time immemorial, which included the
inland city of Madurai and the southern port of Korkai. The Pandyas are
celebrated in the earliest available Tamil poetry ("the Sangam
literature").Graeco-Roman accounts (as early as 4th century BCE), the edicts
of Maurya emperor Asoka, coins with legends in Tamil-Brahmi script, and
Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions suggest the continuity of the Pandya dynasty from
the 3rd century BCE to the early centuries CE. The early historic Pandyas
faded into obscurity upon the rise of the Kalabhra dynasty in south India.

Mangulam inscription (3rd and 2nd centuries BCE)

From the 6th century to the 9th century CE, the Chalukyas of
Badami or Rashtrakutas of the Deccan, the Pallavas of Kanchi, and Pandyas of
Madurai dominated the politics of south India. The Pandyas at one time or

67
another ruled or invaded the fertile estuary of Kaveri (the Chola country), the
ancient Chera country (Kongu and central Kerala) and Venadu (south Kerala),
the Pallava country and Sri Lanka. The Pandyas went into decline with the rise
of the Cholas of Tanjore in the 9th century and were in constant conflict with
them. The Pandyas allied themselves with the Sinhalese (Sri Lanka) and
the Cheras in harassing the Chola Empire until it found an opportunity for
reviving its fortunes during the late 13th century.

The Pandyas entered their "golden age" under Maravarman

I and Jatavarman Sundara Pandya I (13th century). Some early efforts
by Maravarman I to expand into the ancient Chola country were effectively
checked by the Hoysalas.[16] Jatavarman I (c. 1251) successfully expanded the
empire into the Telugu country (as far north as Nellore), south Kerala and
conquered northern Sri Lanka. The city of Kanchi became a secondary capital
of the Pandyas. The Hoysalas, in general, were confined to Mysore Plateau and
even king Somesvara was killed in a battle with Pandyas.[17] Maravarman
Kulasekhara I (c. 1268) defeated an alliance of the Hoysalas and the Cholas
(1279) and invaded Sri Lanka. The venerable Tooth Relic of the Buddha was
carried away by the Pandyas. During this period the rule of the empire was
shared among several royals, one of them enjoying primacy over the rest.[17] An
internal crisis in the Pandya empire coincided with the Khalji invasion of south
India in 1310–11.[7] The ensuing political crisis saw more sultanate raids and
plunder, the loss of south Kerala (1312), and north Sri Lanka (1323) and the
establishment of the Madurai sultanate (c. 1334 In the mid-16th century,
the Vijayanagara governors of Madurai declared independence and established
the Madurai Nayak dynasty. The Pandyas of Ucchangi (9th–13th century), in
the Tungabhadra Valley were related to the Pandyas of Madurai

Twin Fish Flag of the Pandyan Dynesty refers to their underwater

Kingdoms

68
According to tradition, the legendary Sangams ("the Academies") were held
in Madurai under the patronage of the Pandyas, and some of the Pandya rulers
claim to be poets themselves. The Pandya country was home to a number of
renowned temples including Meenakshi Temple in Madurai. After the revival of
the Pandya power by Kadungon (7th century AD), the Shaivite nayanars and
the Vaishnavite alvars rose to prominence. It is known that the Pandya rulers
followed Jainism for a short period of time in history.

According to many of the ancient extant Tamil literature and some of the
Sanskrit literature, Kumari Kandam is the legendary sunken continent, which
was ruled by Pandiyan Kings for thousands of years, before getting submerged
in the Indian Ocean.

Atlantis, Lemuria, and other lost civilizations are the reason why a lot of people
are interested in history. Ever since Atlantis was mentioned by ancient Greek
philosopher Plato, people around the world are convinced that somewhere out
there is a lost city/continent that was once inhabited by an extremely
advanced ancient civilization: the Atlanteans.

However, Atlantis isn’t the only continents said to have existed on Earth. If we
travel towards India, we will find there is a lesser known story of a massive
continent that was swallowed by the ocean.

69
 CHAPTER VII
15 facts about the Kumari Kandam

01. Just like Atlantis, the story behind Lemuria and Kumari Kandam is a
fascinating one. Kumari Kandam is a lost continent home o the Ancient Tamil
people.

02. The mythical continent is said to have existed south of modern-day India
and is located not below the Indian Ocean.

03. Just as with Atlantis, the continent of Kumari Kandam was lost to the sea,
and few of its survivors escaped the cataclysmic events and spread across the
planet.

04. There are several names by which the continents goes depending on
spelling it can vary from Kumari Kandam, Kumarikkantam, and Kumari Nadu.

70
05. The word ‘Kumari Kandam’ was first mentioned in a 15th-century version
of the Skanda Purana –the largest Mahāpurāṇa, a genre of eighteen Hindu
religious texts— and was written by Kachiappa Sivacharyara (1350-1420).

06. Contrary to popular belief, the word “Kumari Kandam” derives from the
ancient Sanskrit words “Kumarika Khanda.”

07. Kumari Kandam is described as the kingdom of the Earth in the

Andakosappadalam section of Kanda Puranam.

08. Kumari Kandam is considered the cradle of civilization, the place where
everything started.

09. Many authors indicate that the people of Tamil belong to the oldest
civilization on the surface of the planet and when the continent of Kumari
Kandam was lost to the sea, its people migrated to other parts of the planet
founding different civilizations.

10. The continent was mentioned for the first time during the 19th century when
scholars proposed the existence of a lost continent called Lemuria, in order to explain
strange geological, and biological similarities between India, Africa and the Island of
Madagascar.

11. After scholars had mentioned the possibility that there is a lost continent hiding
beneath the Indian ocean; people rushed to connect it to ancient legends of lost
civilizations mentioned in ancient Tamil and Sanskrit texts.

12. However, modern-day scholars argue such a continent could not have existed, and
the theory is rendered obsolete after the continental drift theory.

13. Interestingly, there are numerous ancient Tamil and Sanskrit writings that speak
of legendary lost lands in South India that have been devoured by the ocean.

14. Some authors argue that one of the best pieces of evidence supporting the
existence of the lost continent of Kumari Kandam is a thousands-year-old artificial
bridge, located in the Palk Strait, in the Indian Ocean called Rama’s Bridge.

15. In 2006, the National Institute of Ocean Technology conducted some underwater
surveys that revealed the submerged remains of the ancient port city in Indian ocean
in south India.

Reference:Encyclopedia of Imaginary and Mythical Places Paperback – March 4, 2014

by Theresa Bane.The Lemuria myth by S. Cristopher Jayakaran

71
 CHAPTER VIII
ARTICLES ON THIS TAMIL CONTINENT
Kumari Kandam – Geographical Evidence of the Lost Continent on Earth

By Aahna

We’ve all heard plenty of stories doing the rounds about the Atlantis, the
fictional city that Greeks wrote about in their literature. It was believed that
they were quite advanced and liberal for their time. Sadly, it was believed that
the whole city was consumed by the ocean, leaving no remnants of its locals.
This indeed was a tragic end.

A similar tale, although a less popular one, has been narrated in India. This
lesser-known tale is about a lost continent known as the ‘Kumari Kandam.’
Almost a century back, Tamil nationalists believed in the existence of Kumari
Kandam and found a similarity with Lemuria – a mythical “lost land” that
civilized for more than 20,000 years with Tamil speaking population.
This now-sunken continent was situated in the Indian and the Pacific Ocean
and was the connecting line between Africa and South India, via Madagascar.
This Tamil continent was ruled by Pandiyan Kings for more 10,000 years, prior
to getting submerged. Then, the locals and the Pandiyan King migrated to the
residual land of Kumari Kandam and then the capital was moved to
Kapatapuram.

mysteryofindia.com

72
Having lost almost the whole of Kumari Kandam, the Pandiyan King then
decided to conquer the parts of lands that belonged to the Chera and Chola
kings and declared Korkai, which was earlier called Kapatapuram, as the
capital in the later days.

anc ient-

As per the Kumari Kandam protagonists, the continent was submerged when
the sea levels rose and last ice age ended. It was after this that the Tamil
people migrated and mixed with different groups, invariably forming new
languages, races, and civilizations. A lot of people also believe that the whole of
humanity is descended from the dwellers of Kumari Kandam. Both the tales
agree on one common point that the Tamil culture is the foundation of all
enlightened cultures in the world, and Tamil happens to be the mother
language midst all other languages in the world.

For now, it cannot be ascertained whether Kumari Kandam – the “lost land” as
narrated in the medieval Tamil literature – did exist or not. If yes, the theorized
size and site cannot be determined with complete surety. To say the best, there
are numerous truths behind such urban myths, though no way to tell just yet.
For now, while we may assume that Tamil civilization once lost its land that
can only be compared to a district or a small city in today’s generation, but we
cannot claim if it was as big as a continent.
https://www.tripoto.com/trip/kumari-kandam-geographical-evidence-of-the-
lost-continent-on-earth-5c7aa6f1e7ea5

73
 Kumari Kandam- The Lost
Continent(குமரிக் கண்டம் )

“Lemuria” in Tamil nationalist mysticist literature, connecting

Madagascar, South India and Australia (covering most of the Indian Ocean).
Mount Meru stretches southwards from Sri Lanka. The distance from
Madagascar to Australia is about 4,200 miles

Kumari Kandam or Lemuria (Tamil:குமரிக்கண்டம் ) is the name of a

supposed sunken landmass referred to in existing ancient Tamil literature. It is
said to have been located in the Indian Ocean, to the south of present-
day Kanyakumari district at the southern tip of India.

References in Tamil literature

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. There are also references to the rivers
Pahruli and Kumari, that are said to have flowed in a now-submerged
land. The Silappadhikaram, a 5th century epic, states that the “cruel sea” took
the Pandiyan land that lay between the rivers Pahruli and the mountainous
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

74
reference by saying that there was once a land to the south of the present-
day Kanyakumari, which stretched for 700 kavatam from the Pahruli river in
the north to the Kumari river in the south. As the modern equivalent of a
kavatam is unknown, estimates of the size of the lost land vary from 1,400
miles (2,300 km) to 7,000 miles (11,000 km) in length, to others suggesting a
total area of 6-7,000 square miles, or smaller still an area of just a few villages.
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.Two of these Nadus or territories were supposedly
parts of present-day Kollam and Kanyakumari districts.

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 குமரிக் கண்டம் as the land is
called in modern Tamil), which is named in the medieval Tamil
text Kantapuranam either as being one of the nine continents, or one of the
nine divisions of India and the only region not to be inhabited by
barbarians. 19th and 20th Tamil revivalist movements, however, came to apply
the name to the territories described in Adiyarkkunallar’s commentary to the
Silappadhikaram. They also associated this territory with the references in
the Tamil Sangams, and said that the fabled cities of southern Madurai and

75
Kapatapuram where the first two Sangams were said to be held were located on
Kumari Kandam.

In Tamil national mysticism

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Tamil nationalists came to identify
Kumari Kandam with Lemuria, a hypothetical “lost continent” posited in the
19th century to account for discontinuities in biogeography. In these accounts,
Kumari Kandam became the “cradle of civilization”, the origin of human
languages in general and the Tamil language in particular. These ideas gained
notability in Tamil academic literature over the first decades of the 20th
century, and were popularized by the Tanittamil Iyakkam, notably by self-
taught DravidologistDevaneya Pavanar, who held that all languages on earth
were merely corrupted Tamil dialects.

R. Mathivanan, then Chief Editor of the Tamil Etymological Dictionary Project

of the Government of Tamil Nadu, in 1991 claimed to have deciphered the still
undeciphered Indus script as Tamil, following the methodology recommended
by his teacher Devaneya Pavanar, presenting the following timeline (cited after
Mahadevan 2002):

ca. 200,000 to 50,000 BC: evolution of “the Tamilian or Homo Dravida“,

ca. 200,000 to 100,000 BC: beginnings of the Tamil language
50,000 BC: Kumari Kandam civilisation
20,000 BC: A lost Tamil culture of the Easter Island which had an advanced
civilisation
16,000 BC: Lemuria submerged
6087 BC: Second Tamil Sangam established by a Pandya king
3031 BC: A Chera prince in his wanderings in the Solomon Island saw wild
sugarcane and started cultivation in Kumari Kandam.
1780 BC: The Third Tamil Sangam established by a Pandya king
7th century BC: Tolkappiyam (the earliest known extant Tamil grammar)

Mathivanan uses “Aryan Invasion” rhetoric to account for the fall of this
civilization:

“After imbibing the mania of the Aryan culture of destroying the

enemy and their habitats, the Dravidians developed a new avenging
and destructive war approach. This induced them to ruin the forts
and cities of their own brethren out of enmity ”.
Mathivanan claims his interpretation of history is validated by the discovery of
the “Jaffna seal”, a seal bearing a Tamil-Brahmi inscription assigned by its
excavators to the 3rd century BC (but claimed by Mathivanan to date to 1600
BC).
Mathivanan’s theories are not considered mainstream by the contemporary
university academy internationally.

76
Popular culture

Kumari Kandam appeared in the The Secret Saturdays episodes “The King of
Kumari Kandam” and “The Atlas Pin.” This version is a city on the back of a
giant sea serpent with its inhabitants all fish people.

Loss and imagination

Sumathi Ramaswamy’s book, The Lost Land of Lemuria: Fabulous Geographies,
Catastrophic Histories (2004) is a theoretically sophisticated[citation
needed study of the Lemuria legends that widens the discussion beyond
]

previous treatments[citation needed], looking at Lemuria narratives from

nineteenth-century Victorian-era science to Euro-American occultism, colonial,
and post colonial India. Ramaswamy discusses particularly how cultures
process the experience of loss. Above article by

Professor Karsten M. Storetvedt, the chair in geomagnetism at the University of

Bergen, Norway, and an author of the Global Wrench Theory (GWT), says that
the equator regions have always been most prone to natural catastrophes like
earthquakes and volcano eruptions. A part of explanation is that planet
rotation and especially the difference in rotation speed between poles and
equator force earth mantel to strain and to break more easily where the strain
is strongest, that is at the equator regions. These tectonic processes played
important role in the disappearance of the ancient continent known as Lemuria
to western scholars. Sri Lanka together with India, Indonesia and Malaysia
were a part of this continent. Many islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans are
remnants of this continent that in ancient time covered the whole area of
today’s ocean. Storetvedt, who seems to reject the theory of continental drift
and plate tectonics, says that descriptions of cataclysms in early literature
when land suddenly went underwater are logical. But they should be proven to
be scientific facts. This can be done with the help of sea-floor analysis that is
possible to carry out. Modern theories find supportive evidences both in
ancient literature and language history.
https://tamilvaralaru.wordpress.com/2011/09/10/kumarikandam/

77
Mystery of Kumari Kandam- RS Pandey, 2016

Pandiyan Kings ruled almost for 10,000 years on the continent of Lemuria
before it got submerged under water. The Lemuria continent better referred as
‘Kumari Kandam’ was located between the Indian and Pacific Oceans,
connecting Africa with South India through Madagascar. Though vital scripts
on this legendary lost continent is not available today but still some reference in
the Tamil and Sanskrit literature can confirm the existence of this marvelous
land peace that existence once centuries ago. Recent ocean exploration work in
the Indian Ocean, south of present day Kanyakumari district of South India has
further strengthened the belief.

It is an irony and perhaps the most saddened stories of the time that with
submersion of the Kumari Kandam continent, once the highly prosperous
commercial city, the capital of Chola Kingdom, Poompuhar and six of the
colossal temples of Mahapalipuram out of the seven has been and remain today
totally submerged under water.
One of the eminent professor of the University of Jaffna, Dr. A.Shanmugathas,
head of the department of Tamil, confirms the lost of Kumari kandam in his
findings.

It is said that a big Tsunami like catastrophe occurred during those times which
broke and submerged the continent. The Sangam Literature, which is said to be
more than 2,000 yrs old refer to similar natural catastrophes which occur time

78
to time in those areas and which affected and destroyed the Tamil speaking
world of those times.

Other deliberations and talks on the Lemuria continent can be found out from
the literary works of people of eminence around the world. Professor Karsten M.
Storetvedt, the chair in geomagnetism at the University of Bergen, Norway, and
an author of the Global Wrench Theory (GWT), says that the equator regions
have always been most prone to natural catastrophes like earthquakes and
volcano eruptions. A part of explanation is that planet rotation and especially
the difference in rotation speed between poles and equator force earth mantel to
strain and to break more easily where the strain is strongest, that is at the
equator regions. These tectonic processes played important role in the
disappearance of the ancient continent known as Lemuria (Kumari Kandam) to
western scholars. Sri Lanka together with India, Indonesia and Malaysia were a
part of this continent. Many islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans are
remnants of this continent that in ancient time covered the whole area of
today’s ocean. Storetvedt, who seems to reject the theory of continental drift and
plate tectonics, says that descriptions of cataclysms in early literature when
land suddenly went underwater are logical. But they should be proven to be
scientific facts. This can be done with the help of sea-floor analysis that is
possible to carry out. Modern theories find supportive evidences both in ancient
literature and language history.

So, how much truth is there in the story of Kumari Kandam? According to
researchers at India’s 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

79
catastrophic events may have been transmitted orally from one generation to
another and finally written down as the story of Kumari Kandam.

We can find mention of “Kumari Knadam” from various other sources also.
According to Silappadhikaram, one of the five great epics of Tamil Literature
written in second centuries CE, states that the cruel sea took the Pendiyan’s
land, part of which was present between the rivers Pahruli and the
mountainous banks of the Kumari. These rivers are said to have flowed in a
now-submerged land.

Adiyarkkunallar, a 12th century CE commentator on the epic, explains this

reference by saying that there as once a land to the south of the present day
Kanyakumari, which stretched for 700 kavatam from the Pahruli river in the
north to the Kumari river in the south. The modern equivalent of the
measurement kavatam, which is also known as katam in Tamil, is a distance of
6.25 miles (10.06 km.). 700 kavatam equals to 4,375 miles (7,041 km.).
It is a saddened fact that the lost continent of Lemuria or Kumari Kandam sunk
into the Indian Ocean 1000s of years ago, and with vanished the most
prosperous and a humongous Tamil civilization. In the following video you may
get a glimpse of Kumari Kandam.

Reference: Wikipedia; Jayakaran, S. C., 2011`. The Lemuria Myth. ;

Mahalingam, N., 2010. Lemuria and Kumari Kandam.
Originally published at www.againstmisleading.exploremyindia.in.

80
The Lost Tamil Continent of
KUMARI KANDAM
Dr. Uday Dokras

81
82