Tag Archives: Kumari Kandam

Atlantis Parallels: When Myths Echo Plato’s Lost Island

2 October, 2025BookAhuras, Asuras, Atlantis, Atlas, Austronesian, Baruna, Book of the Dead, Comparative mythology, Critias, Eden, Egyptian priests, Flood myths, Garden of Eden, Gilgamesh, Gosong Gia, Java Sea, Kangdez, Kumari Kandam, Land of Punt, Mount Nisir, Neserser, Nusasura, Osiris, Plato, Poseidon, Sais Egypt, Southeast Asia, Sumatra, Sundaland, Ta Netjer, Timaeus, Varuna, VourunaDhani Irwanto

A research by Dhani Irwanto, 2 October 2025

Plato’s tale of Atlantis, told in Timaeus and Critias, has fascinated readers for over two millennia. Yet Plato was not writing in a vacuum. Across the world, from India to Mesopotamia, from Egypt to Tamil traditions, we find stories that sound strangely familiar. These are not “proofs” of Atlantis, but parallels—echoes of catastrophe, paradise, or vanished lands.

Kumari Kandam (Tamil Memory of a Sunken Land)

The Tamil tradition speaks of Kumari Kandam, a lost landmass once ruled by the Pandyan kings. Ancient Tamil texts like Silappatikaram and Kaliththokai describe Sangam academies—gatherings of poets—some of which were said to have been drowned by the sea. Later Puranic texts placed Kumari Kandam in the deep south, now swallowed by the ocean.

It was imagined as a vast territory divided into 49 regions, crossed by mountains with 48 peaks, irrigated by channels from four great rivers. Mining of gems and gold was central. Eventually, the land was said to have been “swallowed by the sea” (Katalkol).

In modern times, revivalists fused this myth with the Victorian hypothesis of Lemuria, a now-abandoned scientific theory about a sunken Indian Ocean continent. Tamil nationalists embraced it as ancestral memory. In my earlier article on Lemuria, I showed how Kumari Kandam became conflated with Lemuria and even Mu, giving the myth a global spin.

Atlantis echo: A golden civilization, irrigated plains, gem mines, destroyed by rising seas.

Kangdez (Iranian Fortress-Paradise)

Iranian epic literature preserves the memory of Kangdez (Fortress of Kang). In the Shāhnāmeh and Bundahishn, Kangdez appears as a miraculous walled city in the Far East. Slides highlight its placement: “at the far eastern ocean, about six months to a year’s voyage from Iran, near the equator, outside China, east of India.”

Descriptions of Kangdez include concentric rings of walls layered with metals and precious stones, plentiful waters, eternal springs, and places of play, silver and gold towers, and a great plain influenced by the sea’s tides with rivers flowing south from volcano-studded mountains.

Atlantis echo: Both traditions emphasize concentric fortifications, gleaming metals, abundance of water, and a paradisal yet precarious geography.

Neserser (Egypt’s Island of Osiris)

In the Book of the Dead (Papyrus of Nu), we encounter Neserser—“the Island of Fire” in the far East, where the sun rises. It is the dwelling place of Osiris (Ausares, Asar) and Thoth. The imagery is vivid: Osiris enthroned in the center of six or seven concentric circles on a sacred lake, a volcanic-like “island and lake of fire” dedicated to Ra, floods that reshape the landscape, and Thoth residing nearby, keeper of divine knowledge.

Later Egyptologists described these circles as “hidden after the flood.”

Atlantis echo: Here again are concentric circles, a sacred island, a great flood, and divine kingship.

Mount Nisir (Mesopotamian Flood Memory)

The Epic of Gilgamesh recounts a great flood, where Utnapishtim builds an ark. After seven days, the boat grounds on Mount Nisir. Slides add color: the land in the Far East was like paradise, with forested mountains, rivers, vast plains, noisy birds, cicadas, and monkeys screaming in the trees.

This imagery is tropical—not the dry Mesopotamian steppe, but a lush, equatorial realm. Some scholars note that “Nisir” is phonetically close to “Neserser” and even “Nusasura.”

Atlantis echo: The flood, the grounding of survivors on a mountain, the paradise-like tropical plain.

The Asuras and the Ahuras

In early Vedic India, the Asuras were not evil—Varuna, guardian of cosmic law and the waters, was chief among them. Later texts, however, cast the Asuras as enemies of the Devas, while Varuna retained dignity as a god of oceans.

In Iranian religion, the cognate term Ahura (as in Ahura Mazda) was elevated as the supreme god, while the Daevas (same root as Devas) became demons.

India (early Vedas): Asuras = powerful lords, led by Varuna

India (later): Asuras = demons
Iran: Ahuras = good, Daevas = bad
Assyria: Ashur = supreme deity
Egypt: Osiris (Asar, Asari) = supreme deity with concentric-circle symbolism

Atlantis echo: The Atlantean kings were “Poseidon’s sons.” Poseidon parallels Varuna/Baruna, lord of seas and boundaries. The name “Atlas” recalls “Asura/Ashur/Osiris.” We glimpse a very old naming web that Solon may have repurposed.

“Atlas” and “Poseidon” as Borrowed Names

Plato openly said he borrowed names “to make the tale intelligible to his audience.” Thus Atlas and Poseidon may be Greek masks for older gods.

Atlas: The mountain-bearing Titan in Greek myth; but also linked to the root “Asura/Asar.”

Poseidon: God of seas and quakes, mirroring Varuna/Baruna/Vouruna—Indo-Iranian lords of waters and oaths.

These echoes suggest that Solon translated Near Eastern deities into Greek equivalents. The concentric rings, sacred kingship, and sea-lord all survive the translation.

The Garden of Eden

Finally, the Garden of Eden—a paradise watered by a river dividing into four: Tigris, Euphrates, Gihon, and Pishon. Genesis places Eden in the East, yet beyond ordinary geography. Some scholars argue Eden reflects older Mesopotamian “Dilmun” traditions—a far-off, pristine land. My 2015 article even suggested Kalimantan as Eden’s real-world counterpart.

Atlantis echo: Eden shares the archetype of a paradise lost—an ordered, fertile place destroyed or closed off after human transgression.

Gosong Gia and Nusantara Echoes

Slides mention Nusasura—possibly the “original name of Atlantis.” It combines nusa (island) and Asura. Old maps show names like Nusasira or Nisaira, perhaps distorted echoes. The Gosong Gia reef in the Java Sea is suggested as a drowned remnant. Even the people of Bawean Island hold myths of a sunken land.

Atlantis echo: If Atlantis lay in the Java Sea, Nusantara traditions like Nusasura may be its local survival in name.

Neserser, Punt, and Southeast Asia: The Egyptian Connection

Plato insists that his Atlantis story came from Egyptian priests at Sais, who told Solon the tale. If so, then the Egyptian worldview—their maps of trade, geography, and sacred memory—shaped what Plato inherited.

The Egyptians had firsthand knowledge of Southeast Asia, preserved in their accounts of the Land of Punt. Punt, described as the Ta Netjer or “land of the gods,” was not a vague myth but a real destination of repeated voyages, from Khufu to Rameses III. The great expedition of Hatshepsut (c. 1493 BCE) is famously carved on her temple walls, showing Egyptian ships sailing to Punt’s harbors.

Punt was, I argue, Sumatra:

Products: Gold, camphor (kapur barus), benzoin (kemenyan), cinnamon, ebony, nutmeg, short-horned cows, elephants, and macaques—all endemic to Sumatra and neighboring islands.
Architecture: Puntite houses on stilts match Sumatran and Enggano traditions.
People: Puntites depicted with lighter skin, straight noses, and Malay-style dress, jewelry, and weapons.
Names: Chief Parehu resembles Enggano names (Paraúha, Puríhio). His wife Ati recalls common Indonesian nicknames.

This is not coincidence—it is a cultural fingerprint.

Now let’s place this beside Neserser. The Book of the Dead speaks of Osiris enthroned at the center of six or seven concentric circles, on an island-lake in the far East. The imagery of circles, water, divine enthronement, and flood resonates directly with Plato’s Atlantis.

If the Egyptians already connected their cosmology to the far East—to Sumatra, the “land of origin”—then the parallels between Neserser and Atlantis may not be abstract at all. They may reflect Egypt’s sacred geography projected upon Southeast Asia.

The Thread of Transmission:

Egypt knew Sumatra as Punt—the source of incense, gold, and sacred products.
Neserser represented a circular, island-paradise of Osiris in the East.
Atlantis, as told by priests to Solon, may have drawn on this same Eastern sacred memory.

In this light, Atlantis is not a purely Mediterranean invention. It may encode Egypt’s knowledge of Southeast Asia, filtered through myth, memory, and Plato’s philosophy.

Later Egyptologists described these circles as “hidden after the flood.”

Atlantis echo: Here again are concentric circles, a sacred island, a great flood, and divine kingship.

Connecting the Dots: A Discussion

The parallels between Plato’s Atlantis and global myths—from Tamil Kumari Kandam to Mesopotamian Nisir, from Iranian Kangdez to Biblical Eden—show a striking pattern of shared motifs: floods, lost paradises, concentric sacred cities, and divine kingship.

Among these, the Egyptian contribution is the most critical. Plato himself acknowledged that the story came from Egyptian priests. Their sacred geography included Neserser, the concentric island of Osiris in the far East, and their historical voyages reached as far as Punt—identified with Sumatra, the ‘Land of Origin.’

When we combine Neserser’s sacred concentric circles with Punt’s real-world geography and resources, a powerful connection emerges: Egypt not only imagined an eastern paradise, but had knowledge of one. Atlantis may be the philosophical echo of Egypt’s long memory of Southeast Asia.

Thus, the Atlantis story can be seen as a tapestry woven from many threads—myths of lost lands, religious cosmologies, and Egypt’s own encounters with Southeast Asia. Connecting these dots allows us to glimpse Atlantis not as an isolated legend, but as part of a wider human memory of catastrophe, paradise, and rebirth.

Conclusion: When Myths Rhyme Across Oceans

Kumari Kandam, Kangdez, Neserser, Nisir, Asuras, Atlas, Eden—each speaks in its own voice, yet the chorus is familiar. Lost lands, floods, circular cities, divine kings, and paradise destroyed.

Plato may have woven a Greek philosophical tale. But the motifs he used—perhaps borrowed, perhaps remembered—echo far older and wider. Atlantis may not be alone; it may be part of a global pattern of mythic memory of catastrophe and rebirth.

Comparative Snapshot: Parallels at a Glance

A concise table to visualize recurring motifs and where Southeast Asia fits in the Egyptian knowledge frame.

Tradition/Source	Core Setting	Key Motifs	Flood/Collapse	Concentric/Sacred Center	Sea-Lord/Lawgiver	SE Asia Link
Kumari Kandam (Tamil)	Southern drowned land	Golden age, irrigated plains, gem mining, lost coasts	Yes – land swallowed by sea	No explicit circles (ordered realms)	Implied righteous kingship	Indirect (Indian Ocean south)
Kangdez (Iranian)	Fortress in the Far East, near equator	Concentric walls, metals, springs, tidal plain, volcanoes	Implied peril at sea’s edge	Yes – concentric fortifications	Sovereign order (Iranian epic)	Points East; equatorial hints
Neserser (Egypt)	Island-lake in the Far East	Osiris enthroned; 6–7 circles; ‘lake of fire’	Yes – flood imagery; ‘hidden’ after	Yes – canonical concentric circles	Osiris/Ra as sacral law & kingship	Conceptual East (sunrise); bridge to Punt
Mount Nisir (Gilgamesh)	Mountain of grounding	Paradise-like East; forests, birds, monkeys; great flood	Yes – global flood narrative	No (mountain refuge)	Divine warning & survival order	Tropical imagery resonates with SE Asia
Asuras/Ahuras (Indo-Iranian)	Cosmic moral order	Waters, oaths, boundaries (Varuna/Ahura Mazda)	Not central	Symbolic circles (order)	Yes – sea-lord/lawgiver archetype	Cultural substrate across Indo-Iran
Atlas/Poseidon (Greek)	Atlantean kingship; sea-quake god	Names tied to sea power, metals, concentric city	Yes – sudden destruction	Yes – Atlantis capital rings	Poseidon (cf. Varuna/Baruna)	By proxy via Indo-Iran → Egypt
Garden of Eden (Genesis)	Eastern paradise, 4 rivers	Pristine garden, moral test, exile	Yes – loss/expulsion (not flood)	No circles; central river hub	Implied divine law	ANE roots; not specific to SE Asia
Nusasura/Gosong Gia (Java Sea)	Shoal/reef & island lore	Name echoes (nusa + asura); local sunken-land myths	Yes – submergence memory	Reef annuli (natural rings)	Asura/Baruna name web	Direct Java Sea locus
Egyptian Punt = Sumatra	‘Land of Origin’ at sunrise	Incense (benzoin), camphor, cinnamon, gold; stilt houses; macaques	No collapse; active trade	Sacred east; gardens/temples receive	Egypt’s sacred economy	Direct – Egyptians knew Sumatra

Kumari Kandam

9 April, 2016Bookancient civilization, Atlantis, drown continent, Ice Age, Iraiyanar Akapporul, Kachiappa Sivacharyara, Kanda Puranam, Kapatapuram, Kumari Kandam, Kumari Nadu, Kumarikkantam, lost continent, Madurai, mistery, Pandiyan, post-glacial, Skanda Purana, Sundaland, sunken continent, Tamil, TenmaturaiDhani Irwanto

A research by Dhani Irwanto, 8 April 2016

Kumari Kandam refers to a hypothetical lost continent with an ancient Tamil civilization, located south of present-day India, in the Indian Ocean. Alternative names and spellings include Kumarikkantam and Kumari Nadu. Most Tamil revivalists connect it with the Pandyan kingdom mentioned in the works of literary Tamil and Sanskrit.

The words “Kumari Kandam” first appear in Kanda Puranam, a 15th-century Tamil version of the Skanda Purana, written by Kachiappa Sivacharyara (1350 – 1420). Although the Tamil revivalists insist that it is a pure Tamil name, it is actually a derivative of the Sanskrit words “Kumarika Khanda”. The Andakosappadalam section of Kanda Puranam describes the following cosmological model of the universe.

“There are many worlds, each having several continents, which in turn, have several kingdoms. Paratan, the ruler of one such kingdom, had eight sons and one daughter. He further divided his kingdom into nine parts, and the part ruled by his daughter Kumari came to be known as Kumari Kandam after her. Kumari Kandam is described as the kingdom of the Earth.”

Although the Kumari Kandam theory became popular among anti-Brahmin anti-Sanskrit Tamil nationalists, the Kanda Puranam actually describes Kumari Kandam as the land where the Brahmins also reside, where Shiva is worshipped and where the Vedas are recited. The rest of the kingdoms are described as the territory of the Mlecchas.

Multiple ancient and medieval Tamil and Sanskrit works contain legendary accounts of lands in South India being lost to the ocean. The earliest explicit discussion of a katalkol (“seizure by ocean”, possibly the sea water rise) of Pandyan land is found in a commentary on Iraiyanar Akapporul. This commentary, attributed to Nakkeerar, is dated to the later centuries of the 1st millennium CE. It mentions that the Pandyan kings, an early Tamil dynasty, established three literary academies (sangams). The first two sangams were not located in South India now but in an ancient Tamil country in the south which then sank. The first sangam flourished for 4,400 years in a city called Tenmaturai, attended by 549 poets (including Agastya) and presided over by gods like Shiva, Kubera and Murugan. The second sangam lasted for 3,700 years in a city called Kapatapuram, attended by 59 poets (including Agastya, again). The commentary states that both the cities were “seized by the ocean”, resulting in loss of all the works created during the first two sangams. The third sangam was established in Uttara (North) Madurai, where it is said to have lasted for 1,850 years. The Pandyan capital of Kapatapuram finds mention in the Ramayana and Chanakya’s Arthasastra (ca 4th century BCE).

Nakkeerar’s commentary does not mention the size of the territory lost to the sea. The size is first mentioned in a 15th-century commentary on Silappatikaram. The commentator Adiyarkunallar mentions that the lost land extended from Pahruli river in the north to the Kumari river in the South. It was located to the south of Kanyakumari, and covered an area of 700 kavatam (a unit of unknown measurement). It was divided into 49 territories (natu), classified in seven categories: elu teñku natu (“seven coconut lands”), elu maturai natu (“seven mango lands”), elu munpalai natu (“seven front sandy lands”), elu pinpalai natu (“seven back sandy lands”), elu kunra natu (“seven hilly lands”), elu kunakarai natu (“seven coastal lands”) and elu kurumpanai natu (“seven dwarf-palm lands”).

A mountain range had forty-eight high peaks. Four rivers were originated from Meru Malai: Kumari Aaru, Peru Aaru, Pahruli Aaru and Kanni Aaru. The Pahruli river was excavated to irrigate the mountain valley by the Pandyan King Nediyon. Ruby was mined from the mountain Mani Malai and gold from Meru Malai. It is said that Chinese laborers were employed by the Pandyan King and when they went down the mines they appeared like a huge army of small ants, therefore, they were called “the gold mining ants”.

Other medieval writers, such as Ilampuranar and Perasiriyar, also make stray references to the loss of antediluvian lands to the south of Kanyakumari, in their commentaries on ancient texts like Tolkappiyam. Another legend about the loss of Pandyan territory to the sea is found in scattered verses of Purananuru (dated between 1st century BCE and 5th century CE) and Kaliththokai (6th – 7th century CE). According to this account, the Pandyan king compensated the loss of his land by seizing an equivalent amount of land from the neighboring kingdoms of Cheras and Cholas.

Kumari Kandam is a Tamil legend about ancient civilization geographically located in the Indian Ocean and then sank into the ocean. Though many Tamil writers do not assign any date to the submergence of Kumari Kandam, resorting to phrases like “once upon a time” or “several thousands of years ago”, but the stories are consistent with the theory of post-glacial been widely acceptable by scientists. This ancient Tamil civilization was located south to Tamil now, or to go to their new land they reached from the south. Vast land which sank in the geological past is not other than Sundaland. Previous theories hypothesized that the vast mainland of Kumari Kandam was located in the south of the Indian subcontinent, but the theory of tectonic plate movement does not support the existence of such land within some thousands years back. It can be presumed that Kumari Kandam is having a relationship with Atlantis or other civilizations thereafter.

The years of the three stages of sangams are summed up to a date between 11,000 and 12,000 years BP, almost the similar number by the Plato’s dating on Atlantis of 11,600 BP, which could relate the Pandyan Kingdom to Atlantis. The mentions of mountain ranges which had forty-eight high peaks, the four rivers originated from the mountains, and the mining of gold and precious stones coincidentally match the Biblical Garden of Eden hypothesized by the author in the southern Kalimantan. The mountain Meru Malai, where there were mountain ranges which had forty-eight high peaks coincidentally match the Malea Mountains in the Ptolemy’s account of Taprobana, in which the author hypothesizes as the Malawi region in Kalimantan on the Schwaner-Muller mountain ranges. These mountain ranges have tens of peaks, to the south lays an expanse of alluvial plain and the origins of four main rivers: Kahayan, Kapuas, Barito and Negara. The Pahruli river excavated for irrigation purposes also coincidentally match the Plato’s description of Atlantis.