THE CRADLE  OF THE DRAVIDIAN CIVILIZATION?

Humanity is engaged in an endless quest to unravel the mysteries of Nature. The origin of the human race, the original homeland of the first human being, the first civilization on earth, the birth of the language and its multiciplity and the puzzles of continental drifts, sea floor spreading, etc are some of the fields wherein new evidences are coming out every now and that which makes such a quest towards truth a must for proper construction of the history of the human race. The greatness of the Indus Valley Civilization and various clues that it provides to discover the first civilization on earth needs to be evaluated in the context of changing needs of our times, wherein claims and counter claims or even doctored claims are made to establish the Dravidian or the otherwise content of that civilization.

 In India Sir John Marshall deserves the credit to be the first scholar to suggest that the language of the Indus Valley civilization was Dravidian. Piero Meriggi in his book “ Zur_Indus Scrift “ (which means On the Indus Script) written in the German language was of the opinion that Brahui, spoken even now in Balochistan, is the Dravidian Language which must be the original language of the Harappans. Henry Heras in his book “ Studies in Proto-Mediterranean Culture “turned more than 1800 Indus texts into Proto-Dravidian sentences. In their book “Proto-Indica: 1979,Report on the investigation of the proto-Indian texts by Yu.V.Knorozov, M.F.Ali Bedil and B.Ya.Volchok have carried out a computer analysis of sign distribution in the Indus texts and had proven beyond an iota of doubt that it belonged to the Dravidian language family. David W.McAlphin in his book “Proto-Elamo-Dravidian and F.C.Southward in his book “The Reconstruction of Prehistoric South Asia language contact” had successfully used the Dravidian roots to reconstruct the language of the Indus Valley. As Dr.Mathivanan had too proven that the Indus script is Dravidian, there is no necessity to question the collective wisdom of all these scholars, yet there are schools of thought, which want to deny the Dravidian roots of the Indus Valley civilization.

Let me quote elaborately from Professor Irafan Habib, who puts up a strong case for the Dravidian family language.“ The Dravidian languages constitute the second largest family in India. Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada belong to the Southern group, Telugu (in Andhra) and Gondi (in widely scattered pockets of Madya Pradesh) to the South Central, Kolami (in Maharastra) to the Central, Kurukh (in Jharkand, Chattisgarh and Nepal) and Brahui (Baluchistan) to the Northern. There are also many minor languages attached to these different groups. Tamil has the longest literary history going back at least to the first century B.C By comparing the vocabularies and grammar of these languages, a hypothetical Proto-Dravidian language can be reconstructed, which, it is assumed, must have been spoken before the speakers of the Dravidian languages separated from each other. The use of certain retroflex sounds (such as hard l, n, r, rh, the tongue having to curl back just under the hard palate in order to pronounce them) is one of the most common traits in the Dravidian languages, while such retroflexion is absent in both Austro-Asiatic and Indo-European languages spoken outside the Indian sub continent. It is therefore a reasonable conjecture that it is Proto-Dravidian or its early successors, from which the Austro-Asiatic and Indo-Aryan languages derive their retroflex consonants. This inference has many consequences. Retroflexion as well as a few words (more than 2 dozen) of possible Dravidian origin are present in the Rigveda. Since retroflexion is totally absent in the Avesta, the earliest Iranian Text, which is very close to Rigveda in vocabulary and grammar, one must assume that Rigveda reciters introduced retroflexion in pronunciation of even the most impeccable Indo_Iranian words, under the influence of the pronunciation of the speakers of the earlier local languages. Since the Rigvedic hymns were composed in the area between the Hindukush and the Ganga, this makes it very likely that some of the substrata languages of Punjab or Upper Indus basin at the time were members of the Dravidian family.  The likelihood is increased by the geographical proximity of the Brahui language, whose speakers are today to be found in northeastern Baluchistan, not far from Punjab.Brahui’s own case for antiquity has been strengthened by David MacAlphins discovery of the links between Elamite.Similarly connections have been seen between Proto-Dravidian and the Uralic languages of Eastern Europe and Siberia, and this would also suggest that there were once Dravidian speakers in latitudes much further to the north than today. There are strong hints towards linking the official Indus language to the Dravidian family”, says Irfan Habib.

Shareen Ratnagar in her book “Understanding Harrappa Civilization in the Greater Indus Valley says “Harrappan language was probably agglutinative or a language which added suffixes to an unchanging root. This feature is characteristic of the   Dravidian language family than the Indo-Aryan text; the rgveda shows Dravidian influence (indicating that early Indo-Aryans had some contact with Dravidian speakers) make it likely that the language of the Harrappans was a Dravidian one. (Note, also, that Brahui, spoken in the hills of southeastern Baluchistan is a Dravidian language)

It will be of great interest to note that Ainul Hag Faridkoti in his book “ Urdu zaban ki Qadeem Tareekh (Urdu: The History of ancient Urdu) and in ‘Pre-Aryan origin of Pakistani languages: A monograph” claims that the first languages of the present day Pakistan are Dravidian.

Bertil Tikkanen “On Burushaski and other Ancient substrata in the north western   South Asia” asserts that Pakistani languages have a Dravidian substratum. The evidence for the presence of the substratum is the presence of retroflex consonants which do not exists in Iranian or European members of the Indo European family of languages.

Iravatham Mahadevan’s book:” The Indus script texts, concordance and tables “ helps in deciphering the Indus script, some claim.. Sathur Sekaran’s valuable contribution in proving that Indus script is Dravidian also deserves special mention. Dr.N.Mahalingam in his article in the book” Ancient India “ observes thus: “though eminent scholars like Heras, Parpola, Kamil Zvelebil, FairServices and Mahadevan have already clearly established that the Indus valley script has to be read only as a Dravidian language, it is the decipherment of the script of the Indus by Dr. M Ramachandran and Dr.R.Madhivanan which is the first cogent and systematic effort which can be stated as the test of vigorous scholarship’

In another scholarly analysis by M. Sundar Raj in his article Tamil Grammer Rules (Tholkappiam) a new truth emerges. He lists the Gods found in Rigveda as 33 gods, and gives a break up. Adityas 12, Vasus 8. Rudras 11, Vasatkara 1, Prajapathi1,so totaling 33. The assertion of Rigveda to restrict the number of gods to 33 baffles M.Sundar Raj, which goes into the question of the rationale of this particular scheme of classification. He refers the Tamil Grammar Tholkappiam particularly on alphabets and finds those 33 letters in Tamil script to be the clue for this particular scheme of classification of 33 gods in Rigveda. 12 Vowels, 18 consonants, 1 Aidham, I Kutrialugaram, 1 Kutrialigaram together makes to the 33 letters. This is a marvelous new line open for research. M.Sundar Raj’s views need further deeper consideration. “ At first stage of impact between the highly developed Dravidian civilization and the nomadic and vigorous Aryan people, a process of civilization of the latter took place, as elsewhere, leading to the birth of Sanskrit language and the evolution of Sanskrit literary conventions from the Dravidian base. The first result was the coming into being of a mixed language, which we today call Sanskrit. The material for the literary compositions in this language were taken from the culture of the teachers, who obviously were Dravidians, and who found in this process a convenient and secretive way of preserving their culture with a key only known to themselves. These early compositions must have been the work of small groups or schools, working in conclaves independently, but with the same inherited material. Long afterwards an attempt appears to have been made to bring together and systematize the whole material, whence the Vedas, as we know now emerged. But by this time the Dravidian origin of the language and culture was forgotten, not merely due to the lapse of time, but also apparently as an outcome of cultural elimination. Thus the key to the puzzle has remained lost now”, opines M.Sundarraj.

The admixtures and adulterations carried out in the languages of the invaders and the subdued indigenous people needs a specialized study to establish the origins of many concepts including the Godhood. An impartial enquiry will bring to light which are the Dravidian or Aryan origins of many social customs, religious practices and literary products including grammar, and unless an unbiased attempt is made in search of truth fabricated truths will rule the roost. It is true that cultural elimination had left a deep adverse impact on the Tamil literary history. The burning away of palm-leaf inscriptions in Bogi fire, and the habit of throwing Tamil texts in Adi-perukku are designed well to serve the process of cultural elimination well, thereby Tamils lost numerous texts which could have been of greater help in reconstruction of the literary and other history. In this age of Netizens , Tamil citizens of various countries are engaged in preserving the palm leaf texts as digital texts, and of particular mention is that of Mr.Na.Kannan who resides in Germany ( tamilheritage.org ). In Karnataka and in Orissa there are many stone inscriptions and cave paintings which have to be deciphered, and like U.V.Swaminatha Iyer if many Tamilians look for Tamil Manuscripts from Museums and other places all over the world , lot of hidden history could be unraveled.

So far we have seen the opinion of various scholars who firmly held that the text and language of the Indus script is Dravidian. But there is a school, which is hell bent upon denying anything about “ Dravidian “ and they call it as a British conspiracy to divide and rule such Aryan invasion theories were invented, forgetting their own rigvedic hymns. In nutshell this is what that school goes on shouting from all possible platforms. Why so? Let me quote John Hinnells and Eric Sharpe from their book “ Hinduism “ which will reveal the designs of these cultural eliminators.” Until the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization, the development of literature and culture in India was always credited to the Aryans. In 1920 archaeologists announced the discovery of extensive urban ruins in the Indus valley, which predated earliest archaeological sources and this caused scholars to reexamine their views on the different phases of Indian culture. The Rig Veda that speaks in such derogatory terms of the enemies subdued from by the Aryan tribes, gives the impression that they were all savage barbarians. “

There is another scholar who speaks about the conspiracy not of the British but of the nomadic invaders. “ The Brahmins for centuries have degraded the original inhabitants of India with the intention of self elevation, preservation and oppression. These ancient dwellers in India were Dravidians, and in fact, their culture had developed a highly sophisticated way of life. The existence of Brahui tribe in Baluchistan to the west of Indus, who speak a Dravidian language like South Indian Tamil, gives the evidence that a migration of people or culture did occur. Also the Harrappan religion shows many similarities with the elements of Hinduism, which are especially popular in the present Dravidian culture. “ (A.L.Basham in The Wonder that was India p 27)

However in pursuance of an attempt to systematically bury the truth an assertion began to be widely made that the Indus Valley civilization was not only Aryan, but also Vedic or even post-vedic.” Some professional archaeologists have embraced this view, though it might be contrary to what they had held earlier. The basic argument advanced by this school is that the main features of the Indus Civilization are quite consistent with those of the society and culture inferable from the rig veda.” Irfan Habib smashes all these assumptions put forward as arguments that make no sense. “ We shall consider the question of the reconcibility of the Rig veda, with what we know of the Indus valley civilization. Since the Rigveda is preeminently a religious text, consisting mainly of hymns to deities, the crucial area of comparison must be religious one. What the seals and copper amulets tell us is that the Indus deities were mostly zoomorphic, represented by the various animals, the most prominent animal being the Unicorn, the mythical one horned humpless bull, other animals include the bison, elephant, humped bull and rhinoceros, in the order of the frequency of the occurrence. The great rigvedic deities are however, practically all anthrophormic in conception (that is idealized human or superhuman forms) and zoomorphism is practically absent. Sarama is a dog like female deity in the late rigvedic hymn, but even here the contrast continues. The Indus seals give no evidence of a similar canine deity (nor is the dog itself pictured on the seals). We may note that the cow so highly priced in the Rigveda and at least at one place deified, is not at all shown on the seals, where the honour belongs to the bull alone. The horse and the camel, sought in gifts by the rigvedic seers, are absolutely absent from these seals. On the other hand, the rigveda shows no perception of the mythical unicorn, or assign any sanctity to the animals like the elephant, rhinoceros or tiger. The rigveda has nothing similar to the composite animals (tigers body, bulls horn, elephant trunks, for sample) on the Indus seals. Among the Indus day figurines found in private houses, representations of the Mother Goddess are particularly numerous. The rigveda has no female deity that is either as prominent or similarly linked to any fertility cult. There is no rigvedic goddess either, who has the body of a tiger, as an Indus cylinder seal. The lack of similarity continues when one considering the ways of disposing the dead. The Indus people buried their dead and there is no evidence at all of cremation. The rigveda on the other hand, recognizes cremation as the principal method, using the word non cremation (an-agnidaghal) for burial.”

Whatever logic is there in these argument, the sadists who want to deny Dravidian people of anything that is great, continue their single point agenda to spread untruths. The Discover Magazine in the following beautiful words describes the greatness of the Dravidian civilization. “ No golden tomb, no fancy ziggurats. Four thousand years ago city builders in the Indus valley made deals, not war, and created a stable, peaceful and prosperous culture. Neither Vedas nor the Bible made any mention of this magnificent civilization. Yet they were a highly organized and stupendously successful civilization. They built some of the worlds first written languages, and thrived in an area twice the size of Egypt and Mesopotamia for 700 years. “

Well we have to look at the way Indus came to be associated with this civilization. “ Harappa, in Sahiwel District of West Punjab, Pakistan had long been known to archaeologists as an extensive site on the Ravi river, but its significance as a major city of an early great civilization remained unrecognized until the discovery of Mohenja daro near the banks of the Indus, in the Larkana District of Sindh by R.D.Banerjee in 1922. Sir John Marshall, the then Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India used the term Indus civilization for the culture discovered at harappa and mohenja daro, a term doubly apt because of the geographical context implied in the name Indus and the presence of cities implied in the world civilization.” Says Irfan habib in his book the Indus Valley Civilization “p 16.

In spite of the fact that this civilization is known as Indus because of the geography and is called as Dravidian because of the language and culture, yet the cultural eliminators are for centuries at pains to remove all traces of Dravidian content or to be more specific, the indigenous people’s greatness, whose culture they had taken over by way of admixture and adulteration.

In 1893 V.Warren, an American wrote the book “ The Paradise found or the Cradle of Human race at the North Pole. Heavily adopting the views put forth in that book Balagangadhara Tilak wrote a book ‘The Artic home of Vedas’. He and other of his school of thought, till date are burning midnight oil to aryanize a Dravidian culture. In Ukraine during 1966 Yu Kanygin brought out his book “ The Path of the Aryans: The role of Ukraine in the spiritual History of Mankind”. This book says that Rama’s birthplace is not Ayodya but near the Driper river. It says Rama is from a tribe known as Druid. It will be of interest to know that Rama, whether a ruler or mythological hero, is a Dravidian born in the tribe of Druids near the Driper River. While such etymological similarities drive home a picture, the cultural eliminators have now started to claim that the word Brahman has got its roots in Abraham. Abraham becomes Brahman. If that were so Christians and Hindus have common origin, and the propaganda of hate has no rational basis.

In Russia a book G.Grinevich released Praslavyanskaya Pismenmost in 1993. In that book he claims to have deciphered the Indus script and according to him it belongs to the Slavs. The language spoken by the people of Indus valley is Slav, he goes on. He even claims that the word Russia has its etymological roots in Sanskrit. Russ denotes white people and from such Sanskrit word Russia came, he says. He further adds that Motcham (Heaven) is the root for the name of the city of Moscow. All these planned propaganda apart, now we are facing with a situation wherein the Indus valley civilization is being renamed or rechristianed, in order to sustain the untruth that it is not Dravidian.

“It has often been suggested that this was the civilization of the Saraswati river, not the Indus. Vedic literature gives importance to a river known as the Saraswati which it said, flowed from north east towards the lower Indus Valley through what are now provinces of Haryana, North Rajasthan and Bahawalpur, and is identified by the mostly dry river bed that is known as Ghagger in India and further downstream in Pakistan, as the Hakra. It has been said that there are several relic mounds of the period (khalibangan for example) spread along the banks of the Saraswathi river system, more sites than the alluvial valley of the Indus. Thus it has been claimed that what we have here is saraswathi rather than Indus civilzation”

This is the argument put forth by those who want to name it as Saraswathi civilization. Shareen Rat agar points out the difficulties in accepting this hypothesis. “ First fewer Harrappan sites lie along the banks of Ghaggar-Hakra than is made out. Second there is no proof at all that the mighty sarasvati of the Rigveda was in fact this (now dry) river- the identification is itself open to doubt. Third when active the Ghaggar-Hakra was in any case a tributary to the Indus. Last, the term Saraswati conjures up a kind of identity between the culture reflected in the Vedic literature and that excavated at harappan sites when, in fact there is hardly any correspondence. The label Saraswathi for all reasons, is difficult to defend on scholarly grounds “ (p7 Understanding Harappa Civilization in the Greater Indus Valley)

Irfan habib says, “ The Indus basin includes the area along the Saraswathi, a small seasonal river, so that coupling of saraswathi with the Indus (Sindhu) has no geographical justification”

Dr.R.Madhivanan says that his researches in  Rajasthan and Gujarat revealed that the local people refer the dead and missing river as “Quari kanya “. Quari became Gowri in Sanskrit and in Punjabi the word Gaur added as suffix, are all derived from Kumari, and the Tamil settlers not forgetting their origin had named this river as Kumari Kanya, after  Kanya kumari, and thereby the so called Saraswathi river’s name is Kanya Kumari river named from Tamil sources.. He also says in Saurastra, the Tamil settlers have named another river as Kaveri. He also says that if at all a mythical river Saraswathi had existed it flowed only in Afghanistan and not in India. The dreams of those who want to change the name of Indus into Saraswathi will receive the quake like hit and be smashed beyond redemption, putting an end to their futile exercise in renaming a globally known civilization.

Well apart from archaeology in land now a new research is being made out in underwater archaeology. The National Institute of Ocean Technology, Chennai, last year unknowingly photographed the ruins of a vast ancient city submerged 40 m under the sea, while they took sonar photographs of the ocean floor. More dredging of the site brought out roughly 2000 artifacts, which were examined by the Birbal Shani Institute of Palebotany in Lucknow and National Geographic Research Institute in Hyderabad. BSIP dated all the artifacts to be around 5500 BC and NGRI pushed the date back to 7500 BC. This discovery must have woken up the Dravidian people, especially the Tamils whose literary evidences prove that the origins of Tamils lay in Kumarikandam, the lost continent in the Indian Ocean. If lost cities could be found in Gulf of Cambay off the Gujarat coast, why not we search for the lost continent of Kumarikandam, the homeland of the Dravidians. In Bangalore an exhibition of the artifacts found from Gulf of Cambay and our Poompuhar were displayed. Video pictures taken in underwater were shown, and to our delight the the scientist Graham Cook said that Poompuhar had been submerged before 9500 years, thus even prior to Gulf of Cambay, our Poompuhar had a civilization dating back to 9500 years. These discoveries, which had taken place last year, are of great importance in our Review of the Recent Discoveries on Indus Civilization. Indus valley is only the catacomb of the Dravidian civilization as the destruction spoken in rigvedic hymns are to be believed. Instead the cradle of the Dravidian civilization is in Kumari kandam, otherwise called as Lemurian continent and Gondwana land.

Now that leads us to a multi pronged research approach. Because quest towards truth is a must. In a show in the National Geographical Channel titled the Journey of Man an answer was given, which gives us light on the direction to be pursued. “ So far our way of investigating our ancestry has been to dig up ancient civilizations. Yet bones do not answer the question of evolution, but genes do,” said scientist Spencer Wells. “ So we started mapping of a family tree of the entire planet taking blood samples from every part of the world. We worked backwards, through elimination and matching, and found that it was a strain of the sangene that was most common across the planet. Every person on earth is part of a connected family, scientists say with certainty, delivering blow to those who claim superiority by race and birth. The mapping of International rice Genome Sequencing project follows mapping of human genes. In such scientific quests, interesting information trickles down. The estimated gene in a human being lies between 30,000 to 40,000 whereas Indica rice contains 45,000 to 56,000 genes. Japanica Rice contains 63,000 genes. Man and mouse are cousins, each descended from a small mammal that split into species towards the end of dinosaur era. Despite 75 million years of separate evolution only about 300 genes, 1 % of the 30,000 possessed by the mouse have no obvious counterpart in the human genome, says Nature Magazine. Taking the cue from these scientific quests, I feel that there is a strong necessity for mapping all the worlds’ languages. Of course UNESCO had brought out Atlases and strives hard to redeem endangered languages. 18 countries make an attempt together in a Universal Network Language project, aimed at using computers to demolish the Tower of Babel. The purpose behind this project is of course trade promotion by way of making translations easy and faster. But I feel that to understand the etymology of every word spoken in every language living or dear a globalized attempt should be made by UNESO or the Universities of the nations in partnership to harness their common knowledge to track down the etymology of every word spoken. It is quest undertaken by the Greatest Tamilian of the past century Devaneya Paavanar and his approach needs scientific sanction and pooling of the worlds knowledge to arrive at the cultural and linguistic roots including the Primitive language of the Mankind.

Already scientists are engaged in the quest and had succeeded initially. Mr.Wolfgang Enand of Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany in the Nature Magazine dated 14 th August 2002 states proudly that “First language gene is discovered. Scientists think they have found the first of the many genes that gave humans speech. Without it language and human culture may never had developed. Key changes to a gene in the last 2,00,000 years of human evolution appear to be the driving force. The gene FOXP2, was first definitely linked with human knowledge.” Having found the first gene that gave humans speech, the quest towards tracing the first language spoken by man had gained impetus. Meanwhile treading the path laid down by Deveneya Paavanar, Dr.R.Mathivanan opines that a new approach called language archaeology ,be used to trace the roots of various words spoken in various languages which have common root from the Primitive language.

Dr. Robert Caldwell’s Comparative Grammar of Dravidian Languages published in 1856 is still hailed as a remarkable turning point in tracing the glorious past, yet even after so many decades, no serious attempt is being made to update this with all the information we have, extending to all the languages of the Dravidian family, including ones spoken in Pakistan and Northern India. Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture, International school of Dravidian Linguistics at  Thiruvananthapuram, Dravidian University at Kuppam in Andhra Pradesh and International Institute of Tamil studies at Chennai must join hands to produce an updated Grammar on Dravidian Linguistics, which must cover other Dravidian family of languages spread all over the world. This will be of great help in establishing the claim of Tamil as the primary classical language.

The Tamil epic Silapathigaram provides us with the literary evidence about the deluge that washed away a landmass in the Indian Ocean. Mr. James Churchward by studying various ancient texts, it is claimed, had discovered the existence of a long lost continent with an advanced civilization that 60,000 years ago had sunk below the Pacific Ocean after a cataclysmic earthquake. There were 64 million people who died in the sinking, and that is dated back over 50,000 years. The Hawaiian Islands and the Pacific islands are the remaining mountain peaks of the lost continent. Well if Mr. James Churhward’s literary evidence cannot be brushed aside,  we cannot also brush aside the Silapathikaram couplet. If a detailed study is conducted in Hawaii and Pacific islands perhaps we may be able to know about the lost continent, the homeland of Tamils. Lemuria is otherwise called Pacifica or Mu. James Churchward in his book “ The Lost continent of Mu” maintains that” vast knowledge of science, ancient art and history, mythology and occult” existed in the lost continent of Lemuria. “ The garden of Eden was not in Asia but now on a sunken continent in the Pacific ocean,” he proclaims and adds “ The biblical story of Creation came first not from the peoples of Nile or the Euraphrates valley but from this now submerged continent, Mu- Motherland of Man. Please note that it is being called Motherland and not Fatherland, as is usual with the cultural eliminators opposed to Dravidian viewpoints. In his book “ The Children of Mu” this scholar says, “ Sixty three million people lived on the now lost continent of Mu. Over 2,00,000 years ago.

 The children of Mu became the first influential people on earth…. America was one of the first colonies of Mu… Mu had an incredibly sophisticate government, flowering of culture and scientific technology.” Much of the Lemurian civilization lived in homes with transparent roofs. They were free from stress and disease lived to be hundreds of years old, developing their E.S.P abilities through nearly 40,000 years of societal practice and experimentation. With that many centuries of evolution, Lemurians gained their reputation or telepathy, astral travel and teleportation-making land vehicles unnecessary. They were primarily socially a vegetarian, agricultural, outdoor, organic culture that worked in harmony with nature and the land, having little use for scientific technology.”

It is to be noted that we always take it as a gospel, when it comes from the white man’s mouth. But we realize little that scholars like Devaneya Paavaanar are not among those who have lost their mental equilibrium nor they are nincompoops, but they are treasure troves of knowledge, which is a common good delivered to Tamil people. Speaking about Lemurian Tamils Paavaanar will trace the development of Tamil between 100,000 and 50,000 BC.Spencer Wells and his team of scientists have now found out that the first man originated before 60,000 years. We Tamils somehow have become addicted to the use of the phrase Two Thousand years old to claim a hoary past for our culture. Christian calendar alone cannot be the period of inception of the Dravidian culture. Millions of years ago what happened, we have to indulge in a quest, and not be satisfied with the accidental unearthing of the Indus Valley Civilization.

From Australia to Arizona there exists a mythological proof of the lost continent. To quote from a Hopi legend ‘ down on the bottom of the seas lie all the proud cities and the worldly treasures corrupted with evil. Faced with such disaster, some people hid inside the earth while the others escaped by crossing the ocean on reed rafts, using the islands as stepping-stones. The same story to escape to dry land appears in the Popul Vu epic of the Quiche Maya and the Modoc tribe near Mount Shasta among others.

“ According to the Rosicrucian’s of San Jose, California, the disastrous cycle began with volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and the collapse of the subterranean gas belts. Magnetic waves started moving around the globe, and Lemuria began to go under. Fortunately there was time enough for small groups to salvage part of Lemurias precious wisdom, which was stored in crystals. Some colonists reached India and from there Mesopotamia and Egypt, while others migrated eastwards on crude rafts to the Americas, forming the racial core of the earliest Indian tribes.

So it is not Silapathigaram alone, the stories of various tribes speak about the lost continent, and it is here, in the Indian Ocean south of Kanyakumari the National institute of Oceanography must engage in underwater archaeological quest to find out the cradle of the Dravidian civilization that spread from South to North encompassing the Indus valley and countries beyond.

The Super Continent of Gondwanaland was made up of South America, Africa, Antarctica, India and Australia.” Gondwanaland is named after the upper Paleozoic and Mesozoic formations of the Gondwanaland district of central India. which display a number of shared geologic features ( The Gondwana Beds). In the late nineteenth century, on the basis of comparative geological evidence, the Austrian geologist, Edward Stress suggested that the continents of Africa, South America, Australia and India were once part of a single super continent, which he called Gondwanaland.”

Alfred Wagener, known as the father of the theory of Continental drift, in his publication around 1912 said that “ looking at the global map it would appear that the continents could be brought together to fit like a jigsaw puzzle” Now everyone admits that the solid upper earth floats on asthenosphere, the lithosphere slips.

“The vast Himalayan range was created when a plate of the earth crust carrying the landmass of India collided with the plate carrying Asia some 45 million years ago having traveled 5000 kilometers nearly due north across the expanse now occupied by the Indian ocean’ opines D.P.Meckinzie and J, G.Sclater in their article “ The evolution of the Indian Ocean’. Apart from the literary evidences, when we look forward to understand the evolution of Dravidian civilization we will have to get answers over the puzzle about the Indian Ocean, wherein the cradle of the Dravidian civilizations remains buried.

Scholars say that” Many attempts have been made to guess precisely how south America, Africa, India, Antarctica and Australia were once joined to form the primitive continent known as Gondwanaland. There is as yet no general agreement as to how this should be done. The rift between Australia and Antarctica is good. The arrangement of all five major units however is controversial and the original position of Madagascar is unknown. The principal difficulty is that no magnetic lineation has yet been discovered on the older parts of the floor of the Indian Ocean between the continents. We therefore cannot continue to reassemble continents by the same methods we have used to trace the movement of India. During the past 75 million years. There is also no other structure like the Ninety East Ridge which was recognized as a transform fault even before the magnetic lineation were mapped. Fortunately, the area of the sea floor in which the record presumably lies hidden is not great. Last year a series of deep holes were drilled in the floor of the Indian Ocean by the drilling vessel” Glomar Challenger. The data from these holes have confirmed and amplified our reconstruction of the history of the ocean. They have also added to the evidence needed to reconstruct Gondwanaland”

“Meanwhile one can speculate about the original juxtapositions of India, Antarctica and Australia. One guess is that existing reconstructions are wrong because they have attempted to remove practically every piece of the ocean floor between the continents. That approach has been favoured because all continents believed to have formed the Gondwanaland show evidence of having been covered by a huge ice cap 270 million years ago. We know from recent glaciations in the Northern hemisphere that continental ice caps can simultaneously cover landmasses that are separated by oceans. It may be that a small ocean basin comparable perhaps to the artic Ocean, was nestled somewhere among the southern landmass 270 million years ago. It may be out of our ignorance of its existence and shape that is preventing the successful reconstruction of Gondwanaland “ This is how the Indian Ocean puzzle remains according to D.P.Meckenzie and J.G.Slater. And it is the duty of our government as well of nations that border within Indian Ocean must indulge in a joint search for answers to these puzzles. Unless the submerged Kumari Kandam is subjected to in depth study, it will be impossible to back up our literary evidences with scientific proofs, and the National Institute of Oceanography must be engaged to unravel these facts. While excavating Arikamedu, all efforts to look into the ocean floor near Pondicherry for further evidences is a must.

And let the quest to find the cradle of mankind as well as our homeland begin. Truth is awaiting us and we must march towards truth and in pursuance of truth all efforts must be made by Tamils all over the world apart from fighting falsehoods spread day in and day out , against Dravidian culture.

Na.Nandhivarman

General Secretary DRAVIDA PERAVAI

Paper presented at  National Seminar on

The Indus Valley : A Review of Recent Research organized by the Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture on 28.9.2003 at the Chief Secretariat Conference Hall and inaugurated by the Pondicherry Education Minister K.Lakshminarayanan and Presided by Dr.Pa.Maruthanayagam, Director of PILC.