Vedic Sarasvathi Valley Culture From Dravida South

Kumarikandam map the sunken continet

All the cultures  of the world have some sort of records,legends on the Great flood that inundated the world.

These details are found in the Bible, Hinduism,Jewish History and Zend Avesta.

These details are also found among the illiterate ethnic groups in the form of ballads.

Tamil literature deals in detail about the great flood,Kadal Kol.

Tamil Epic, among others, Silappathikaram deals exhaustively on his subject

Portions of Tamil Nadu were submerged under the sea including the Then Madurai, the Madurai in Tamil Nadu belongs to a different period.

Bible speaks of One flood.

Considering the historical proof found and the number of references Tamil and Sanskrit references seem to be more authentic and they include the one mentioned in the Bible.

We shall see how these Floods happened and their approximate dates.

“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,000 BC:

Kumari Kandam civilisation20,000 BC:

A lost Tamil culture of the Easter Island which had an advanced civilisation.

Lemuria submerged6087 BC:

Second Tamil Sangam established by a Pandya king 3031 BC:

A Chera prince in his wanderings in the Solomon Islands saw wild sugarcane and started cultivation in Present Tamil nadu.1780 BC:

The Third Tamil Sangam established by a Pandya king7th century BC: Tolkappiyam (the earliest known extant Tamil grammar)

Of the three Floods, the Mahabharata refernce to Chera King ,Udiyan Neduncheralathan having participated in the Mahabharata wa along with Pandya King probably relates to the Second Sangam period as the first Sangam period was wiped out when Lemuria sunk.

This means that the earliest reference to Tamils is from Mahabharata which is dated around 3000 BC.

( However there is enough evidence in the Puranas and the archeological finds in Tamilnadu indicate that the Tamil Culture had thrived during or even before the Vedic, Sarasvati Valley civilization)

The third Sangam was established by a Pandya King and his lineage may be traced back to the Vedic period.

“And, O Yudhishthira, in the country of the Pandyas are the tirthas named Agastya and Varuna! And, O bull among men, there, amongst the Pandavas, is the tirtha called the Kumaris. Listen, O son of Kunti, I shall now describe Tamraparni. In that asylum the gods had undergone penances impelled by the desire of obtaining salvation. In that region also is the lake of Gokarna which is celebrated over the three worlds, hath an abundance of cool waters, and is sacred, auspicious, and capable, O child, of producing great merit. That lake is extremely difficult of access to men of unpurified souls. Mahabharatha 3:88[17]

And similarly, Pandya, who dwelt on the coast-land near the sea, came accompanied by troops of various kinds to Yudhishthira, the king of kings. Mahabharatha 5:19

Steeds that were all of the hue of the Atrusa flower bore a hundred and forty thousand principle car-warriors that followed that Sarangadhwaja, the king of the Pandyas. Mahabharatha 7.23

In return, Malayadhwaja pierced the son of Drona with a barbed arrow. Then Drona’s son, that best of preceptors, smiling the while, struck Pandya with some fierce arrows, capable of penetrating into the very vitals and resembling flames of fire. Mahabharatha 8:20′

Add to this the Bhagavatham stating that the Ancestor of Lord Rama, Satyavrata Manu having migrated to North with two sons to establish a Kingdom in Ayodhya.”

This is a clear indication of the culture from the South moved to North , to Sarasvati Valley and later Indus Valley.

Then there is the Tamil script being found in the Mohenjo-Daro.

One batch of migration from the south took place towards the Sarasvati .

What about the next?

We have references about the Arctic the Home of the Rishis and Vedas, Lemuria and Atlantis being one.

We shall examine in detail

References.

The Oxford History of India, 4th ed. revised by Percival Spear (reprinted Delhi�: OUP, 1974-1998), p.�43.
[2] R.�C. Majumdar, H.�C. Raychaudhuri, Kalikinkar Data, An Advanced History of India (Madras�: Macmillan, 4th ed. 1978).
[3] A.�L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India (Calcutta�: Rupa, 3rd ed. 1981).
[4] K.�A. Nilakanta Sastri, A History of South India (New Delhi�: OUP, 4th edition 1975).
[5] K. V. Raman, Excavations at Uraiyur (Tiruchirapalli) 1965-69 (Madras�: University of Madras, 1988).
[6] K.�V. Soundara Rajan, Kaveripattinam Excavations 1963-73 (New Delhi�: Archaeological Survey of India, 1994).
[7] See The Ancient Port of Arikamedu�New Excavations and Researches 1989-1992, vol. 1, ed. Vimala Begley (Pondicherry�: �cole Fran�aise d�Extr�me-Orient, 1996).
[8] As reported in The New Indian Express (Coimbatore edition), 12 April 2000. The occasion was a debate on �saffronization of the education system,� and the full first part of the quotation is�: �The RSS has gone to the extent of saying that Dravidian civilization is part of Hinduism….�
[9] For a good overview of the archaeological picture of ancient South India, see K.�V. Raman, �Material Culture of South India as Revealed in Archaeological Excavations,� in The Dawn of Indian Civilization (Up To c.�600�BC), ed. G.�C. Pande (Delhi�: Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 1999), p. 531-546.
[10] K.�A. Nilakanta Sastri, A History of South India, p. 84.
[11] Uttankita Sanskrit Vidya Aranya Epigraphs vol. II, Prakrit and Sanskrit Epigraphs 257 BC to 320 AD, ed. K.�G. Krishnan (Mysore�: Uttankita Vidya Aranya Trust, 1989), p.�16 ff, 42 ff.
[12] Ibid., p. 151 ff.
[13] R. Nagaswamy, Art and Culture of Tamil Nadu (New Delhi�: Sundeep Prakashan, 1980), p. 23.
[14] B. Narasimhaiah, Neolithic and Megalithic Cultures in Tamil Nadu (Delhi�: Sundeep Prakashan, 1980), p.�211�; also in Bridget and Raymond Allchin, The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan (New Delhi�: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 331.
[15] B. Narasimhaiah, Neolithic and Megalithic Cultures in Tamil Nadu, p. 203.
[16] I.�K. Sarma, Religion in Art and Historical Archaeology of South India (Madras�: University of Madras, 1987), p.�33.
[17] K.�V. Raman, Sakti Cult in Tamil Nadu�a Historical Perspective (paper presented at a seminar on Sakti Cult, 9th session of the Indian Art History Congress at Hyderabad, in November 2000�; in press).
[18] William A. Noble, �Nilgiris Prehistoric Remains� in Blue Mountains, ed. Paul Hockings (Delhi�: OUP, 1989), p.�116.
[19]Bridget and Raymond Allchin, The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan, p.339-340.
[20] I.�K. Sarma, Religion in Art and Historical Archaeology of South India, p. 35.
[21] Ibid. , p. 34.
[22] K.�V. Raman, Excavations at Uraiyur, p.�84.
[23] K.�V. Raman, Sakti Cult in Tamil Nadu.
[24] K.�V. Soundara Rajan, Kaveripattinam Excavations 1963-73, p. 111-112.
[25] Iravatham Mahadevan, �Pottery Inscriptions in Brahmi and Tamil-Brahmi� in The Ancient Port of Arikamedu, p. 295-296.
[26] K. V. Raman, �A Note on the Square Copper Coin from Arikamedu� in The Ancient Port of Arikamedu, p. 391-392.
[27] R. Krishnamurthy, Sangam Age Tamil Coins (Chennai�: Garnet Publications, 1997). The following examples are drawn from this book.
[28] K. V. Raman, �Archaeological Excavations in Kanchipuram�, in Tamil Civilization, vol. 5, N�1 & 2, p.�70-71.
[29] R. Krishnamurthy, Sangam Age Tamil Coins, p. 26.
[30] Ibid., p. 46-47, etc.
[31] Two important studies in this respect are�: Savita Sharma, Early Indian Symbols (Delhi�: Agam Kala Prakashan, 1990) and H. Sarkar & B.�M. Pande, Symbols and Graphic Representations in Indian Inscriptions(New Delhi�: Aryan Books International, 1999).
[32] K.�A. Nilakanta Sastri, A History of South India, p. 130.
[33] N. Raghunathan, Six Long Poems from Sanham Tamil (reprint Chennai�: International Institute of Tamil Studies, 1997), p.�2, 10.
[34] K.�A. Nilakanta Sastri, A History of South India, p. 130.
[35] Tolkappiyam Marabus 71, 72, 77, 81, quoted by S. Vaiyapuri Pillai in Life of Ancient Tamils.
[36] Tolkappiyam,Porul 166, 176, quoted by K.�V. Sarma, �Spread of Vedic Culture in Ancient South India� in The Adyar Library Bulletin, 1983, 43:1, p.�5.
[37] K.�V. Raman, Sakti Cult in Tamil Nadu.
[38] Paripadal, 8.
[39] Paripadal, 3, 9, etc..
[40] Purananuru, 2, 93, etc. See also invocatory verse.
[41]The last three references are quoted by K.�V. Sarma in �Spread of Vedic Culture in Ancient South India,� p. 5 & 8.
[42] Quoted by K.�V. Sarma in �Spread of Vedic Culture in Ancient South India,� p. 8.
[43] Purananuru, 17 as translated in Tamil Poetry Through the Ages, vol. I, Ettuttokai: the Eight Anthologies, ed. Shu Hikosaka and G. John Samuel (Chennai�: Institute of Asian Studies, 1997), p. 311.
44] Tiruvalluvar, The Kural, translated by P.�S. Sundaram (New Delhi�: Penguin, 1990), p.�19.
[45] For more details on Tiruvalluvar�s indebtedness to Sanskrit texts, see V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar�s study of the Kural, as quoted by P.�T. Srinivasa Iyengar in History of the Tamils (Madras�: reprinted Asian Educational Services, 1995), p. 589-595.
[46] V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, Cilappatikaram (Madras�: 1939, reprinted Chennai�: International Institute of Tamil Studies, 1997), p.�57,
[47] R. Nagaswamy, Art and Culture of Tamil Nadu, p. 7.
[48] P. S. Subrahmanya Sastri, An Enquiry into the Relationship of Sanskrit and Tamil (Trivandrum�: University of Travancore, 1946), chapter 3.
[49] See for instance�: K.�A. Nilakanta Sastri, �Sanskrit Elements in Early Tamil Literature,� in Essays in Indian Art, Religion and Society, ed. Krishna Mohan Shrimali (New Delhi�: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1987)�; K.�V. Sarma, �Spread of Vedic Culture in Ancient South India� in The Adyar Library Bulletin, 1983, 43:1�; Rangarajan, �Aryan Dravidian Racial Dispute from the Point of View of Sangam Literature,� inThe Aryan Problem, eds. S.�B. Deo & Suryanath Kamath (Pune�: Bharatiya Itihasa Sankalana Samiti, 1993), p. 81-83.
[50] K. V. Raman, �Religious Inheritance of the Pandyas,� in Sree Meenakshi Koil Souvenir (Madurai, n.d.), p.�168.
[51] Ibid., p.�168-170.
[52] V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, Cilappatikaram, p.�53.
[53] Ibid., p.�58.
[54] John Ralston Marr, The Eight AnthologiesA Study in Early Tamil Literature (Madras�: Institute of Asian Studies, 1985), p.�vii.
[55] K.�A. Nilakanta Sastri, �Sanskrit Elements in Early Tamil Literature,� p. 45 (emphasis mine).
[56] John R. Marr, �The Early Dravidians,� in A Cultural History of India, ed. A.�L. Basham (Delhi�: OUP, 1983), p.�34.
[57] Kamil Zvelebil, The Smile of Murugan�: On Tamil Literature of South India (Leiden�: E.�J. Brill, 1973), p.�20, quoted in Ganapathy Subbiah, Roots of Tamil Religious Thought (Pondicherry�: Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture, 1991), p.6.
[58] Ibid.
[59] M.�G.�S. Narayanan, �The Vedic-Puranic-Shastraic Element in Tamil Sangam Society and Culture,� in Essays in Indian Art, Religion and Society, p. 128.
[60] Ibid., p. 139.
[61] N. Raghunathan, Six Long Poems from Sanham Tamil, p. 32.
[62]Ganapathy Subbiah, Roots of Tamil Religious Thought, p. 5.
[63] N. Subrahmanian, The Tamils�Their History, Culture and Civilization(Madras� Institute of Asian Studies, 1996), p. 118.
[64] Ganapathy Subbiah, Roots of Tamil Religious Thought, p. 160.
[65] Swami Vivekananda, �Reply to the Madras Address,� The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (Advaita Ashrama, 1948), p. 278.

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