
Kumari Kandam is a legendary sunken continent believed to have existed south of present-day India, in the Indian Ocean. Rooted deeply in ancient Tamil literature and mythology, it is described as a vast and advanced landmass where Tamil civilization thrived long before any known historical records.
According to Sangam texts and later Tamil traditions, Kumari Kandam was the seat of the first Tamil Sangam (academy of poets and scholars), and home to wise kings, sages, and divine beings. It is believed to have submerged due to a great deluge (akin to the global flood myths) and is often linked with Lemuria, a now-discredited 19th-century scientific theory proposing a lost continent to explain similarities in fauna across India, Madagascar, and Africa.