Lemuria (), or Limuria, was a continent proposed in 1864 by zoologist Philip Sclater, theorized to have sunk beneath the Indian Ocean, later appropriated by in supposed accounts of human origins. The theory was discredited with the discovery of plate tectonics and continental drift in the 20th century.
The hypothesis was proposed as an explanation for the presence of lemur fossils on Madagascar and the Indian subcontinent but not in continental Africa or the Middle East. Biologist Ernst Haeckel's suggestion in 1870 that Lemuria could be the ancestral home of humans caused the hypothesis to move beyond the scope of geology and zoogeography, ensuring its popularity outside of the framework of the scientific community.
Occultist and founder of theosophy Helena Blavatsky, during the latter part of the 19th century, placed Lemuria in the system of her mystical-religious doctrine, claiming that this continent was the homeland of the human ancestors, whom she called Lemurians. The writings of Blavatsky had a significant impact on Western esotericism, popularizing the myth of Lemuria and its mystical inhabitants.
Theories about Lemuria became untenable when, in the 1960s, the scientific community accepted Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift, presented in 1912, but the idea lived on in the popular imagination, especially in relation to the Theosophist tradition.
Scientific origins
Lemuria was hypothesized as a
land bridge, now sunken, which would account for certain discontinuities in
biogeography. This idea has been rendered obsolete by modern theories of
plate tectonics. Sunken continents such as
Zealandia in the Pacific, and Mauritia
and the Kerguelen Plateau in the Indian Ocean do exist,
but no geological formation under the Indian or Pacific oceans is known that could have served as a land bridge between these continents.
Postulation
In 1864, "The Mammals of Madagascar" by
zoologist and biogeographer
Philip Sclater appeared in
The Quarterly Journal of Science. Using a classification he referred to as
, but which included related primate groups,
[Neild, Ted Supercontinent: Ten Billion Years in the Life of Our Planet Harvard University Press (2 Nov 2007) pp. 38–39] and puzzled by the presence of their
in Madagascar and India, but not in Africa or the Middle East, Sclater proposed that Madagascar and India had once been part of a larger continent (he was correct in this; though in reality this was Mauritia
and the
supercontinent Gondwana).
The anomalies of the mammal fauna of Madagascar can best be explained by supposing that... a large continent occupied parts of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans... that this continent was broken up into islands, of which some have become amalgamated with... Africa, some... with what is now Asia; and that in Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands we have existing relics of this great continent, for which... I should propose the name Lemuria!
Parallels
Sclater's theory was hardly unusual for his time; "
", real and imagined, fascinated several of Sclater's contemporaries. Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, also looking at the relationship between animals in India and Madagascar, had suggested a southern continent about two decades before Sclater, but did not give it a name.
[
Neild, Ted Supercontinent: Ten Billion Years in the Life of Our Planet Harvard University Press (2 Nov 2007) p.38] The acceptance of
Darwinism led scientists to seek to trace the diffusion of species from their points of
origin. Before the acceptance of continental drift, biologists frequently postulated the existence of submerged land masses to account for populations of land-based species now separated by barriers of water. Similarly, geologists tried to account for striking resemblances of rock formations on different continents. The first systematic attempt was made by
Melchior Neumayr in his book
Erdgeschichte in 1887. Many hypothetical submerged land bridges and continents were proposed during the 19th century to account for the present distribution of species.
Promulgation
After gaining some acceptance within the scientific community, the concept of Lemuria began to appear in the works of other scholars.
Ernst Haeckel, a Darwinian
taxonomist, proposed Lemuria as an explanation for the absence of proto-human "missing links" in the fossil record. According to another source, Haeckel put forward this thesis before Sclater, without using the name "Lemuria".
[L. Sprague de Camp, Lost Continents, 1954 (First Edition), p. 52]
Supersession
The Lemuria theory disappeared completely from conventional scientific consideration after the theories of
plate tectonics and continental drift were accepted by the larger scientific community. According to the theory of plate tectonics, Madagascar and India were indeed once part of the same landmass (thus accounting for geological resemblances), but plate movement caused India to break away millions of years ago, and move to its present location. The original landmass, Mauritia
and the supercontinent
Gondwana prior to that, broke apart; it predominantly did not sink beneath sea level.
Theosophy and occultism
The idea of Lemuria was later incorporated into the philosophy of Theosophy and has persisted as a theme in pseudoarchaeology and discussions of lost lands. There is a vast fringe literature pertaining to Lemuria and to related concepts such as the Lemurian Fellowship and other things "Lemurian". All share a common belief that a
continent existed in what is now either the
Pacific Ocean or the
Indian Ocean in ancient times and claim that it became submerged as a result of a geological cataclysm. An important element of the mythology of Lemuria is that it was the location of the emergence of complex knowledge systems that formed the basis for later beliefs.
The concept of Lemuria was developed in detail by James Churchward, who referred to it as Mu and identified it as a lost continent in the Pacific Ocean. Churchward appropriated this name from Augustus Le Plongeon, who had used the concept of the "Land of Mu" to refer to the legendary lost continent of Atlantis. Churchward's books included The Lost Continent of Mu, the Motherland of Men (1926), The Children of Mu (1931), The Sacred Symbols of Mu (1933), Cosmic Forces of Mu (1934), and Second Book of Cosmic Forces of Mu (1935). The relationships between Lemuria/Mu and Atlantis are discussed in detail in the book (1954) by L. Sprague de Camp.
Australia
Blavatsky claimed that Australia was a remnant inland region of Lemuria and that Aboriginal Australians and Aboriginal Tasmanians (which she identified as separate groups) were of Lemurian and Lemuro-Atlantean origin, after cross-breeding with animals. Her idea was subsequently developed in pseudo-histories and fiction of the white Australian popular culture of the 1890s and early 1900s, including the writings of nationalist Australian poet Bernard O'Dowd, author Rosa Campbell Praed in
My Australian Girlhood, author John David Hennessey in
An Australian Bush Track and George Firth Scott's novel
The Last Lemurian: A Westralian Romance.
Robert Dixon suggests that the popularity of the idea of "lost races" like Lemurians and Atlanteans reflected the anxieties of colonial Australians, that "when Englishness is lost there is nothing to replace it".
Telos Mount Shasta
In 1894, Frederick Spencer Oliver published
A Dweller on Two Planets, an occult book which claimed that survivors from Lemuria were living in a complex of tunnels beneath the mountain of
Mount Shasta in northern
California. This city, known as
Telos: City of Light boasted fur-lined carpeted floors and jeweled walls, all signs of opulence. Spencer also claimed that Lemurians could be seen walking the surface in white robes.
In 1931, Harvey Spencer Lewis, who went by the pseudonym Wishar Spenle Cerve
wrote
Lemuria: the Lost Continent of the Pacific, which popularized the idea that Shasta was a repository for Lemurians.
In the 1930s, Guy Warren Ballard claimed to have been approached by Saint Germain who told him he could endow him with knowledge and wisdom. Ballard wrote and published the book Unveiled Mysteries under the alias Godfré Ray King, where Ballard claimed to be the person that Saint Germain was speaking through to get to the world. The belief in Telos has been proliferated by Ballard and his followers, as well as other religious groups like the Ascended master, the Great White Brotherhood, The Bridge to Freedom, The Summit Lighthouse, Church Universal and Triumphant, and Kryon.
Kumari Kandam
Some Tamil writers such as
Devaneya Pavanar have associated Lemuria with
Kumari Kandam, a legendary sunken landmass mentioned in the Tamil literature, claiming that it was the cradle of civilization. A Tamil commentator,
Adiyarkunallar, described the dimensions that extended between the
Pahrali River and the
Kumari River in the
Pandya dynasty country that was taken over by the ocean later on.
See also
Further reading
-
(1954) by L. Sprague de Camp. New York: Gnome Press & Dover Press.
-
-
Ramaswamy, Sumathi. (1999). "Catastrophic Cartographies: Mapping the Lost Continent of Lemuria". Representations. 67: 92-129.
-
Ramaswamy, Sumathi. (2000). "History at Land's End: Lemuria in Tamil Spatial Fables". Journal of Asian Studies. 59(3): 575-602.
-
Frederick Spencer Oliver, A Dweller on Two Planets, 1
-
Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (Ccru). (2015). "Lemurian Time War". Writings 1997-2003. Time Spiral Press.
External links
-
Lemuria at the Encyclopedia of Fantasy
