was doubtless Kuddanadu, the limits of which I have already described.
Cape Kumari (the modern Comorin) was a sacred bathing place. Brahmin pilgrims came from Vâranâsi (or Benares) to bathe in Kumari and absolve their sins.[1] Similarly the Brahmins of Southern India went round the Pothiya hill, which was famous as the residence of the Vedic sage Agastya, then bathed in the sea at Kumari, and travelled northward to the Ganges to bathe in the sacred waters of that river.[2] Pilgrims from the banks of the Ganges to Kumari, and from Tamilakam to Benares appear to have kept up communication between the Northern and Southern Aryas. At the period of which I now write, the people remembered that in former days the land had extended further south, and that a mountain called Kumarikkodu, and a large tract of country watered by the river Pahruli had existed south of Cape Kumari. During a violent irruption of the sea, the mountain Kumarikkodu and the whole of the country through which flowed the Pahruli had disappeared.[3] Similar irruptions of the sea, and the subsidence of land on the south-western coast of Ceylon in the second century B. C. are recorded in the Buddhist annals of that island.[4]
- ↑ Manimekalai, xiii. N. 3 to 7.
- ↑ Chilappathikaram, xv. N. 14 & 15, and xxvii: N. 68, 69 and 110.
- ↑ Kalith-thokai-stanza 104 N. 1 to 4. Chilappathikaram, xx. N. 17 to 22. “The river Pahruli, and the mountain Kumari, surrounded by many hills, were submerged by the raging sea.” The commentator Nallarkiniyar states that between the Pahruli and Kumari rivers there was a tract of land extending to 700 Kavathams: and that it was divided into 7 Thenga Nadus, 7 Mathurai Nadus, 7 Munpalai Nadus, 7 Pinpalai Nadus, 7 Kunra Nadus, 7 Kunakarai Nadus, and 7 Kurumporal Nadus, or 49 Nadus, in all. But he does not quote his authority for this statement.
- ↑ During the reign or Tissa, the sovereign of Calyani, the province was submerged by the overflow of the ocean. This was about B. C. 200. Mahavansa. L. C. Wijesiuba Mudaliar’s edition, Chap. xxii, p. 84. The event is thus recorded in the Rajavali. “In these days the sea was seven leagues from Kalyany; but on account of what had been done to the priest (who had been tortured by the king of Kalyany) the gods who were charged with the conservation of Ceylon became enraged, and caused the sea to deluge the land......... In this time, of Tissa Raja, 100,000 large towns’ 970 fisher’s villages, and 400 villages inhabited by pearl fishers making together eleven-twelfths of the territory of Kalyany was swallowed up by the sea. Rajavali : Vol. II., pp. 180, 190. Sir J. E. Tennent disbelieved the traditions of the former extent of Ceylon and submersion of vast regions by the
