>Monkbot: Task 18 (cosmetic): eval 9 templates: del empty params (1×); hyphenate params (3×);

2020-12-31T09:01:39Z

Task 18 (cosmetic): eval 9 templates: del empty params (1×); hyphenate params (3×);

New page

{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2018}}
{{Use Indian English|date=May 2018}}
{{Infobox person |
name = Visvanatha Kanakasabhai Pillai |
birth_date = 1855 |
image = Kanakasabaipillai.jpg |
death_date = 1906 |
occupation = [[Historian]], [[lawyer]]
}}

'''Visvanatha Kanakasabhai Pillai''' (1855–1906) was an Indian lawyer, historian and Dravidologist of Sri Lankan Tamil descent. He was the first person to attempt a chronology of ancient Tamil Nadu. He was also one of the first people to deduce the references to a long-submerged legendary continent, [[Kumari Kandam]], in texts such as ''Silappadhikkaram''.

== Ancestry ==

Kanakasabhai was born in [[Madras Presidency]] in 1855. His ancestors hailed from [[Mallakam]], [[Jaffna]] in [[Ceylon]].<ref name="sumathip267">{{cite book|title=Fabulous Geographies Catastrophic Histories: The Lost Land of Lemuria|pages=267|author=Sumathi Ramaswamy|publisher=Orient Blackswan|year=2005|isbn=978-81-7824-110-4}}</ref> Kanakasabhai's father V.Visvanatha Pillai, author of Tamil-English dictionary, from Mallakam. To keep alive his connections with Ceylon, Viswanatha Pillai married a woman from Jaffna.

== Early life and education ==

Kanakasabhai graduated in [[arts]] from [[Presidency College, Madras]] and joined the Indian Postal Service.<ref name="sumathip267" /> Like his father, he married a Tamil of Sri Lankan origin.

Kanakasabhai was a lawyer but developed a keen interest in Tamil history and after practising for a few years, he left the profession and became a full-time historian.<ref name="sumathip267" />

== Kumari Kandam ==

From 1895 onwards, Kanakasabhai published a series of articles in the ''Madras Review'' about a long-submerged land that lay to the south of Cape Comorin.<ref name="sumathip267" /> These theories of his were based on ancient Tamil and Buddhist sources.<ref name="sumathip267" /> These papers were subsequently published in his book ''The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago''.<ref name="sumathip267" />

Three years later, in an editorial in the ''Siddhanta Deepika'', Nallaswami Pillai hinted that [[Lemuria (continent)|
Lemuria]] was the long lost land of Kumari Kandam.<ref name="sumathip267" />

== ''The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years ago'' ==

In 1904, Kanakasabhai published his [[Masterpiece|magnum opus]], [[wikisource:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago|''The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago'']]. Dedicated to [[Sir S. Subramania Iyer]], the book was made up of sixteen chapters, each of which examined the life, culture, geography, trade, religion and philosophy of the ancient Tamil country based on the descriptions in two ancient Sangam epics, the [[Silappatikaram]] and the [[Manimekalai]]. The book is considered to be a classic and as one of the first notable efforts to research the history of [[Sangam period]] [[Tamil Nadu]].

Kanakasabhai postulated entirely new pathbreaking theories in his book. He was the first person to suggest the existence of a [[Kumari Kandam]] based on his reading of the ''Silappatikaram''. He also claimed that the Tamils were originally settlers from Bengal and that the word "Tamil" itself was derived from the ancient port of [[Tamralipta]].<ref name="ramachandradikshitarp59">{{cite book|title=Origin and Spread of the Tamils|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.34321|author=V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar|author-link=V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar|publisher=The Adyar Library|year=1947|pages=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.34321/page/n4 59]}}</ref> He postulated a new theory that the Dravidian upper classes originally hailed from Mongolia.<ref name="ramachandradikshitarp58">{{cite book|title=Origin and Spread of the Tamils|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.34321|author=V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar|author-link=V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar|publisher=The Adyar Library|year=1947|pages=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.34321/page/n3 58]}}</ref>

Kanakasabhai was the first historian to attempt a systematic chronology of Tamil history.<ref name="tamiliteraturep36">{{cite book|title=Tamil literature|author=Kamil Zvelebil|author-link=Kamil Zvelebil|pages=36|publisher=BRILL|year=1975|isbn=978-90-04-04190-5}}</ref> Kanakasabhai believed that the Sangam age might have flourished even in the 2nd century AD.<ref name="jainismp6439">{{cite book|title=Encyclopaedia of Jainism|author=Nagendra KR Singh|publisher=Anmol Publications PVT LTD|year=2001|isbn=978-81-261-0691-2|pages=6439}}</ref> He based these claims on the [[Gajabahu synchronism]] proposed by Seshagiri Sastriyar.<ref name="jainismp6439" />''The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago'' also had anti-Brahminical overtones. Kanakasabhai accused [[Tamil Brahmin]]s of a conscious attempt to "foist their system on the Tamils".<ref name="zvelebil_companionp257">{{cite book | title=Companion Studies to the History of Tamil Literature | last=V. Zvelebil| first=Kamil|year=1992| publisher=BRILL| isbn=90-04-09365-6 | author-link=Kamil Zvelebil|pages=257}}</ref>

== Criticism ==

Kanakasabhai's claims of Mongolian origin for Tamils and the relation of the word "Tamil" with Tamralipti have invited sharp criticism from contemporary historians.<ref name="ramachandradikshitarp58" /> At the Madras Presidency College lectures in 1896, a European said that Kanakasabhai's claims demonstrated the "comparative worthlessness of Hindu history".<ref name="sumathip267" />

== Works ==

* {{cite book|title=The Great Twin Epics of Tamil}}
* {{cite book|title=Dravidian kingdom:The conquest of Bengal and Burma|author=Desikachariar}}
* {{cite book|title=[[wikisource:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago|The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years ago]]|year=1904|publisher=[[Higginbotham's]]}}

== Notes ==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[[wikisource:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago|''The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.'' Full text in wikisource]]
*[http://noolaham.org/wiki/index.php/%E0%AE%AA%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%81%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%81:%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%A9%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%9A%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%88,_%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF. Books of V. Kanakasabhai at the Noolagam project]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kanakasabhai, V}}
[[Category:1855 births]]
[[Category:1906 deaths]]
[[Category:Dravidologists]]
[[Category:19th-century Indian historians]]
[[Category:Indian people of Sri Lankan descent]]
[[Category:Presidency College, Chennai alumni]]
[[Category:Sri Lankan Hindus]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian historians]]

V. Kanakasabhai - Revision history

>Monkbot: Task 18 (cosmetic): eval 9 templates: del empty params (1×); hyphenate params (3×);