The Lost Land of Lemuria - PDF Archive

352 Pages·2008·4.68 MB·English

The Lost Land of Lemuria
A
B O O K
The Philip E. Lilienthal imprint
honors special books
in commemoration of a man whose work
at the University of California Press from 1954 to 1979
was marked by dedication to young authors
and to high standards in the field of Asian Studies.
Friends, family, authors, and foundations have together
endowed the Lilienthal Fund, which enables the Press
to publish under this imprint selected books
in a way that reflects the taste and judgment
of a great and beloved editor.
The Lost Land
of Lemuria
Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories
Sumathi Ramaswamy
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley Los Angeles London
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2004 by the Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ramaswamy, Sumathi.
The lost land of Lemuria : fabulous geographies, catastrophic
histories / Sumathi Ramaswamy.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN0-520-24032-4(cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN0-520-24440-0
(pbk : alk. paper)
1. Lost continents. 2. Tamil (Indic people). 3. Tamil (Indic
people)—India—History. 4. Civilization, Ancient. 5. Lemuria.
6.Tamil Nadu (India)—Civilization. I. Title.
GN751.R26 2004
001.94—dc22 2003022825
Manufactured in the United States of America
13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication is both acid-free and totally
chlorine-free (TCF). It meets the minimum requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper).
For my father,
in the shadow of whose loss I wrote this book

A map of the world that does not include Utopia
is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country
at which Humanity is always landing.
And when Humanity lands there, it looks out,
and seeing a better country, sets sail.
Progress is the realisation of Utopias.
Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

CONTENTS
List of Illustrations /
xi
Acknowledgments /
xiii
Note on Transliteration /
xvii
1. Placing Loss / 1
2. Science in the Service of Loss / 19
3. Occult Losses / 53
4. Living Loss at Land’s End / 97
5. Flooding History / 137
6. Mapping Loss / 182
7. Laboring against Loss / 223
Notes /
235
Bibliography /
297
Index /
325