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.These writings date fromapproximately the first to the third centuries c.e., yet even these contain Sanskrit corruption of siddha medicine by ayurveda 91vocabulary.42 There is no Tamil literature, then, that indicates a Tamil civilizationfree of Sanskrit influence.So, in order to locate pure Tamil culture and identity,before the presumed invasion of the Aryans, Tamil revivalist leaders historicizebeyond history, speaking in authoritative, hopeful tones about the nature of Tamilbeginnings.The siddhars are also drawn into this narrative, and with them siddha medi-cine.As he does with Agastya, A.Chidambaranar employs the notion of a large,prehistoric Tamil continent to bring Mount Kailasa into the Tamil realm and thusalso the entire scope of Tirumular s wide-ranging exploits.He dates Tirumularto 6000 b.c.e., about ten thousand years after the first Agastya.According toChidambaranar, this was the time of the Rmyaõa, a time in which Sanskrit andTamil were interacting.43 Tamil was still the predominant language of the subcon-tinent, however, spoken from the northern mountains to Kumari in south.Indeed,Chidambaranar draws on an intriguing verse of the Tirumantiram to argue thatthe influence of Tamil extended throughout the world. They roam the worldspreading wisdom that is abundant in the five Tamil regions (maõñalam).A heartmelting in devotion, and knowledge of my lord, are the basic characteristics ofthe five Tamil regions (1619).Chidambaranar interprets Tami× ma õñalam ain-tum not as five regions of Tamil-speaking people in the south of the subcontinent,but as a reference to five continents, Asia, Europe, Africa, America, and Australia.Although the subject they of the verse is unspecified, Chidambaranar takes it tobe groups of Tamil Nadu siddhars wandering those five continents, spreadingtheir knowledge.This was also a time in which Tamil gave rise to eighteen lan-guages, which include Sinhalese, Chinese, Javanese, Burmese, Bengali, Kannada,and Nepalese, among others.44 These details about the siddhars are consistentwith some of Chidambaranar s other writings, which include poems to Tami×tty(mother Tamil).He is perhaps best known for his specious discovery of a text ofthe first sangam, CeïkMnxaraiccelavu, a text celebrating the exploits of a Tamil kingÉnamed Sengon.45 Chidambaranar held that this text told of the oldest civilizationof the Tamilians on the submerged land called continent of Lamoria [sic]. Thisland, a thousand miles south of present Ceylon.was called Tamilagam by theTamilians.Many pandits and scientists hold the opinion that the human speciesfirst evolved in the Great Indo-African Continent.This large continent is ofgreat importance for being the probable cradle of the human race. 46Siddha vaidyas contribute to these accounts, locating the origins of theirmedicine in a variety of foundation narratives.Although there are some differ-ences in their formulations, they consistently cite the ancientness, ethnic purity,and extraordinary capabilities of the beginnings of their medicine, and they insiston an enduring link between the Tamil people, land, and siddha medicine.WhenI spoke to Kundrathur Ramamurthy about the early history of siddha medicine, 92 recipes for immortalityhe located the origins of his knowledge on Lemuria. It started on Lemuria.ThenLemuria and Lanka were one.It started in Lemuria and spread to northern lands,then to China and then to Arabian countries.This is how it happened.That s thecorrect history. P.Muttukkaruppa Pillai, head of the Madurai Siddha MedicineAssociation, also speaks of the siddhars founding and teaching siddha medicine onLemuria.There they established a siddha committee at that time under Agastya sleadership.and they shone with divine qualities. 47V.Narayanaswami, a licensed practitioner of Indian medicine and a retiredlecturer in the Government College of Integrated Medicine in Madras, wrote hisIntroduction to the Siddha System of Medicineat the request of K.Anbazhagam, theTamil Nadu minister of public health at the time of the book s publication in 1975.Inhis forward to the book, Anbazhagan recounts that till recently it was the practiceof the Government of India to refer in their records to Siddha as Ayurveda includ-ing Siddha as though both the systems were the same and that the Siddha systemwas only a minor variant. Objecting to this, he had asked Narayanaswami to writea book highlighting the special features of the Siddha system
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