192?] MADRAS PEARL FISHERIES 55 



the case. There seems to be considerable evidence pointing to a 

 considerable extension southwards of the Indian Peninsula at a 

 comparatively recent geological period. Without going into details 

 as regards this it will suffice to point out the great extent of shoals 

 and of shallow water lying off Cape Comorin and to the statement 

 in the ancient Tamil epic " Chilappatikaram " where in the opening 

 lines of the 8th Chapter reference is made to a terrible irruption 

 of the sea which devastated a great tract of country to the south of 

 what is now Cape Comorin. The passage states* that the people 

 of that time (circa second century A.D.) had heard from their 

 fathers 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, 

 and that at a time not very long before, in the reign of the Pandyan 

 King Jayamakirtti alias Nilantarutiruvit Pandya, the sea had torn 

 through the land, destroying the mountain Kumarikkodu and 

 submerging the whole of the country through which flowed the 

 river Pahruli. 



Lending corroborative weight to this legend are the stories of 

 similar irruptions of the sea on the south-west coast of Ceylon 

 recorded in the Buddhist annals of that country. Even now these 

 stories are current among the Sinhalese of the south, whe point to the 

 outlying rocks known as the Basses, as the remnant of this lost land 

 which they say was a land of richness abounding in towns and 

 palaces. 



In this connexion too we have to note the significant fact of the 

 reported presence of large accumulations of oyster shells overlaid 

 by soil at Muttam, about two miles north-east of Cape Comorin. t 



This presence of an old pearl fishery camp within two miles of 

 the Cape lends further support to the theory of a great extension 

 southwards of the pearl fishery region and while not conclusive as 

 evidence add greatly to the physiographical probabilities of such 

 a hypothesis 



At a time when thesouthern extremity of India extended further 

 to the south, the pearl banks on both sides of the Gulf of Mannar 

 would have greater protection from the South-West Monsoon than 

 they have at present while the extent of suitable ground would be 

 more extensive. At the present day on the coast of Tinnevelly and 



* Vide V. Kanakasabhai in " The Tamils Eighteen Hundred ) ears ago", Madras, 

 1904, p. 21. 



t Vide the statement made to me to this effect in May 1904 by the Jathi Talaivan from 

 his personal knowledge. 



