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 tsunami) 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 Sangam flourished for 4,400 years in a city called Tenmaturai (South Madurai) 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.
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).
In 1864, the English zoologist Philip Sclater hypothesized the existence of a submerged land connection between India, Madagascar and continental Africa. He named this submerged land Lemuria, as the concept had its origins in his attempts to explain the presence of lemur-like primates (strepsirrhini) on these three disconnected lands. In 1885, the Indian Civil Service officer Charles D. Maclean published The Manual of the Administration of the Madras Presidency, in which he theorized Lemuria as the proto-Dravidian urheimat. In a footnote in this work, he mentioned Ernst Haeckel's Asia hypothesis, which theorized that the humans originated in a land now submerged in the Indian Ocean. Maclean added that this submerged land was the homeland of the proto-Dravidians. He also suggested that the progenitors of the other races must have migrated from Lemuria to other places via South India. This theory was also cursorily discussed by other colonial officials like Edgar Thurston and Herbert Hope Risley, including in the census reports of 1891 and 1901.
A similar report of a lost underwater continent has been reported in the National Geographic. In a study published in Nature Communications, a team of South African researchers have described the discovery of 3-billion-year-old zircon crystals on Mauritius. But the volcanic island itself is only some 8 million years old, so how is that possible? The ancient minerals, found on the island’s beaches, were likely ejected by volcanic eruptions from far below. Their age suggests the zircons once belonged to a continental crust much older than the recently formed island itself. This means that deep underneath the surface of the Indian Ocean and right under Mauritius, there was once a small continent. Mauritia, as the researchers have proposed to name it, was only a quarter of the size of Madagascar and has been buried under volcanic material for millions of years. Mauritia acted as a buffer zone between the western Indian subcontinent and eastern Madagascar, and was fragmented by numerous tectonic and volcanic events that occurred in that region since the early Cretaceous period. The early Cretaceous period happened some 146 to 100 million years ago. Dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex and sauropods were wandering around the early continent of Gondwana — now South America, Africa, India, Antarctica, and Australia. As Gondwana changed shape, causing India and Madagascar to move apart some 180 million years ago, Mauritia broke into smaller and thinner pieces.
Whatever be the name - Kumari Kandam, Mauritia, Lemuria or Gondwana, all the above reports indicate the presence of an underwater continent connecting India, Australia, Madagascar and Africa, with possible extensions to South America and Antarctica. A lot of research is yet to be done, lots of facts to be unravelled from the depths of the Indian Ocean and history waiting to be revealed; the past, which may change the future of the entire human race.
Lord Jagannath is seated along with Lord Balabhadra and Goddess Subhadra in an ancient stone temple in Puri, Odisha. These three deities, constitute the basic and fundamental Trinity and are considered to be the forms and manifestations of the omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent supreme power. Sudarshan, who is supposed to be the fourth important divine manifestation, is also worshipped with the celebrated trio and these four are known as the Caturdha murti or the four-fold divine images. Besides, Madhava, a replica of Jagannatha, Sridevi and Bhudevi are also installed in the sanctum sanctorum and worshipped.
Some interesting and unexplained facts about the Jagannath Temple at Puri: