promiscuous mass of hearsay information about events of remote and very remote periods separated by centuries and millenia, containing several legendary and prochronistic statements. All the same, it cannot be summarily dismissed as of no use or value, as is done by some South Indian historians. It is the duty of the historian to evolve order out of chaotic data.

     That there existed three Tamil Academies in ancient times, the first two in the submerged continent and the last one in modern Madurai, is admitted by all the greatest Tamil scholars of this century including Dr.U.V. Swaminatha Ayyar and Prof.R. Raghava Iyengar. There is nothing to prove, that the number of kings who patronised them, are incredibly or improbably high. There is also no room for any doubt about the duration of the Academies, if the high antiquity of Tamil and its association with Lemuria are taken into consideration. The figures may not be precise; but the fundamental facts remain solid and sound.

     The history of the submerged continent is interspersed with accounts of several inroads of the sea; The first inroad devoured the southern part of the continent, and put an end to the First Academy, the seat of which was the original Madurai, the first Pandiyan capital on the banks of the river PahŠu˜i. The second, submerged the middle part of the continent along with Alaivƒy(?), the second Pandiyan capital and the seat of the Second Academy, situated at the mouth of the river Kumari and called Kapƒdapura in Sanskrit. The third, sank a vast area of land to the east of the Indian Peninsula and created the Bay of Bengal. The fourth engulfed Kƒviripp‡mpa——inam and the river Kumari and a strip of land lying between them. After the disappearance of the river Kumari, the cape near its site is bearing that name.

     After the second capital of the Pandiyas went under the sea, the surviving Pandiyan king or a member of the royal line, led a bold expedition against the Chera and Chola kings, and seized the southernmost districts from their territories. This is stated explicitly in the commentary of Adiyƒrkkunallƒr, and somewhat vaguely in the opening lines of the 104th stanza of Kalittokai, an anthology of the 2nd century A.D.