Visvanatha Kanakasabhai Pillai (1855–1906) was an Indian lawyer, historian and Dravidologist of Sri Lankan Tamil descent.

[1] 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.

[1] 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.

[1] Three years later, in an editorial in the Siddhanta Deepika, Nallaswami Pillai hinted that Lemuria was the long lost land of Kumari Kandam.

[3] At the Madras Presidency College lectures in 1896, a European said that Kanakasabhai's claims demonstrated the "comparative worthlessness of Hindu history".