The Lost Continent of Kumari Kandam

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Most people are familiar with the story of Atlantis, the legendary sunken city as described by the ancient Greek
philosopher Plato. Till this day, opinion is still divided as to whether this story should be understood literally
or taken merely as a morality tale. Further east in the subcontinent of India is a similar tale, though it probably
is less well known compared to that of Atlantis. This is the ‘lost continent’ of Lemuria, frequently connected to
the legend of Kumari Kandam by speakers of the Tamil language.
The term Lemuria has its origins in the latter part of the 19th century. The English geologist Philip Sclater was
puzzled by the presence of lemur fossils in Madagascar and India but not in mainland Africa and the Middle
East. Thus, in his 1864 article entitled ‘The Mammals of Madagascar’, Sclater proposed that Madagascar and
India were once part of a larger continent, and named this missing landmass ‘Lemuria’. Sclater’s theory was
accepted by the scientific community of that period as the explanation of the way lemurs could have migrated
from Madagascar to India orvice versa in ancient times. With the emergence of the modern concepts of
continental drift and plate tectonics, however, Sclater’s proposition of a submerged continent was no longer
tenable. Yet, the idea of a lost continent refused to die, and some still believe that Lemuria was an actual
continent that existed in the past.
One such group is the Tamil nationalists. The term Kumari Kandam first appeared in the 15thcentury Kanda
Puranam, the Tamil version of the Skanda Puranam. Yet, stories about an ancient land submerged by the
Indian Ocean have been recorded in many earlier Tamil literary works. According to the stories, there was a
portion of land that was once ruled by the Pandiyan kings and was swallowed by the sea. When narratives
about Lemuria arrived in colonial India, the country was going through a period when folklore was beginning
to permeate historic knowledge as facts. As a result, Lemuria was quickly equated with Kumari Kandam.
 Bhagavata-Purana, 10th Skanda. Image source.
The story of Kumari Kandam is not regarded as just a story, but seems to be laden with nationalistic
sentiments. It has been claimed that the Pandiyan kings of Kumari Kandam were the rulers of the whole Indian
continent, and that Tamil civilisation is the oldest civilisation in the world. When Kumari Kandam was
submerged, its people spread across the world and founded various civilisations, hence the claim that the lost
continent was also the cradle of human civilisation.
So, how much truth is there in the story of Kumari Kandam? According to researchers at 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 catastrophic events may have been
transmitted orally from one generation to another and finally written down as the story of Kumari Kandam.
One piece of evidence used to support the existence of Kumari Kandam is Adam’s Bridge (also called Rama’s
Bridge), a chain of limestone shoals made up of sand, silt and small pebbles located in the Palk Strait
extending 18 miles from mainland India to Sri Lanka. This strip of land was once believed to be a natural
formation, however, others argue that images taken by a NASA satellite depict this land formation to be a long
broken bridge under the ocean's surface.
 The location of Adam's Bridge between India and Sri Lanka
The existence of a bridge in this location is also supported by another ancient legend. The Ramayana tells the
tale of Sita, Rama’s wife, being held captive on the island of Lanka. Rama commissions a massive building
project to construct a bridge to transport his army of Vanara (ape men) across the ocean to Lanka.
As with most so-called myths, it seems likely that there is at least some truth to the ancient Tamil legends of
Kumari Kandam, but just how much, is yet to be determined.
Turbotodd
Ruminations on IT, the digital media, and some golf thrown in for good measure.

Posts Tagged ‘human genome’

Out Of Africa: IBM And National Geographic Map The
Human Genography
with one comment
My father’s name is James Watson. But alas, he’s no relation to the co-discoverer of DNA.

Click to expand. Using new analytical capabilities, IBM and the Genographic Project have found
new evidence to support a southern route of human migration from Africa before any
movement heading north, suggesting a special role for south Asia in the "out of Africa"
expansion of modern humans.

Just as I’m no relation to the founder of IBM, T.J. Watson. You’d be surprised how many people
ask if I am related to the IBM Watsons. I politely explain that if I were, I’d probably be on a
yacht in the Caribbean somewhere. And I still aspire to discover a long lost genetic connection.

But who I AM related to is part of the study that will be related today at the National Geographic
Society in partnership with IBM’s Genographic Project.

Flash back a few million years.

Evolutionary history has demonstrated human populations likely originated in Africa. The
Genographic Project, which is the most extensive survey of human population genetic data to
date, suggests where they went next.

No, not to McDonalds. That came much later.

Rather, a study by the project finds that modern humans migrated out of Africa via a southern
route through Arabia, rather than a northern route by way of Egypt.

It’s those findings that will be highlighted today at the National Geographic Society conference.

Mapping The Human Geno-ography

National Geographic and IBM’s Genographic Project scientific consortium have developed a new
analytical method that traces the relationship between genetic sequences from patterns of
recombination — the process by which molecules of DNA are broken up and recombine to form
new pairs.

Ninety-nine percent of the human genome goes through this shuffling process as DNA is being
transmitted from one generation to the next. These genomic regions have been largely
unexplored to understand the history of human migration.
By looking at similarities in patterns of DNA recombination that have been passed on and in
disparate populations, genographic scientists confirm that African populations are the most
diverse on Earth, and that the diversity of lineages outside of Africa is a subset of that found on
the continent.

The divergence of a common genetic history between populations showed that Eurasian groups
were more similar to populations from southern India, than they were to those in Africa.

This supports a southern route of migration from Africa via the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait in Arabia
before any movement heading north, and suggests a special role for south Asia in the “out of
Africa” expansion of modern humans.

The new analytical method looks at recombinations of DNA chromosomes over time, which is
one determinant of how new gene sequences are created in subsequent generations.

Imagine a recombining chromosome as a deck of cards. When a pair of chromosomes is

shuffled together, it creates combinations of DNA. This recombination process occurs through
the generations.

Recombination contributes to genome diversity in 99% of the human genome. However, many
believed it was impossible to map the recombinational history of DNA due to the complex,
overlapping patterns created in every generation.

Now, by applying detailed computational methods and powerful algorithms, scientists can
provide new evidence on the size and history of ancient populations.

Ajay Royyuru, senior manager at IBM’s Computational Biology Center, had this to say about the
effort: “Over the past six years, we’ve had the opportunity to gather and analyze genetic data
around the world at a scale and level of detail that has never been done before.
“When we started, our goal was to bring science expeditions into the modern era to further a
deeper understanding of human roots and diversity. With evidence that the genetic diversity in
southern India is closer to Africa than that of Europe, this suggests that other fields of research
such as archaeology and anthropology should look for additional evidence on the migration
route of early humans to further explore this theory.”

Filling In The Genographic Gaps

The Genographic Project continues to fill in the gaps of our knowledge of the history of
humankind and unlock information from our genetic roots that not only impacts our personal
stories, but can reveal new dimensions of civilizations, cultures and societies over the past tens
of thousands of years.

“The application of new analytical methods, such as this study of recombinational diversity,
highlights the strength of the Genographic Project’s approach. Having assembled a
tremendous resource in the form of our global sample collection and standardized database,
we can begin to apply new methods of genetic analysis to provide greater insights into the
migratory history of our species,” said Genographic Project Director Spencer Wells.

The recombination study highlights the initial six-year effort by the Genographic Project to
create the most comprehensive survey of human genetic variation using DNA contributed by
indigenous peoples and members of the general public, in order to map how the Earth was
populated.

Nearly 500,000 individuals have participated in the Project with field research conducted by 11
regional centers to advance the science and understanding of migratory genealogy. This
database is one of the largest collections of human population genetic information ever
assembled and serves as an unprecedented resource for geneticists, historians and
anthropologists.

At the core of the project is a global consortium of 11 regional scientific teams following an
ethical and scientific framework and who are responsible for sample collection and analysis in
their respective regions.

The Project is open to members of the public to participate through purchasing a public
participation kit from the Genographic Web site (www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic),
where they can also choose to donate their genetic results to the expanding database. Sales of
the kits help fund research and support a Legacy Fund for indigenous and traditional peoples’
community-led language revitalization and cultural projects.
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