that a large continent once existed in the Indian Ocean, which was connected with South India, and which was overwhelmed and submerged by a huge deluge. The Hebrew scriptures have preserved a distinct account of an appalling deluge occasioned by continuous showers of rain for forty days and nights, coupled with the overflow of the waters of the ocean. Geological research has shown that the Indian Ocean was once a continent, and that this submerged continent, sometimes called Lemuria, originally extended from Madagascar to Malay Archipelago, connecting South India with Africa and Australia. According to Sclater, the Dravidians entered India from the South long before the submergence of this continent. There are unmistakable indications in the Tamil traditions that the land affected by the deluge was contiguous with Tamil‰agam, and that after the subsidence, the Tamils naturally betook themselves to their Northern provinces. The assertion of the geologists that Lemuria touched China, Africa, Australia and Comorin will only show the vast extent of the Tamil country, and can never help to dogmatise that the Tamils came from any of these now far-off regions; and settled in South India. On the evidence of the very close affinities between the plants and animals in Africa and India at a very remote period, Mr.Oldham concludes that there was once a continuous stretch of dry land connecting South Africa and India. The aborigines of Australia have been associated by many distinguished ethnologists with the Dravidians of India. The affinities between the Dravidians and Australians have been based upon the employment of certain words, and upon the use of the boomerang by the two peoples, and upon certain correspondences in their physical types.”¹

     “We shall now discuss what might be called the indigenous theory. According to this theory the Dravidians should have lived in South India from the earliest times. This is almost a faith with the Tamils, a typical Dravidian people. We shall strike the mine of ancient Tamil literature to see if its contents shed any light on this indigenous theory. We shall later on demonstrate beyond the possibility of a doubt the high antiquity of Tamil literature. We

1.D.I.pp,25-27