Shri jaykay, I feel that your proposition has the apparent ring of truth but not the strength to withstand rigid scrutiny. My doubts (I am just an ordinary tabra without any special knowledge or scholarship) are as under:—How come the oldest rama account is written in sanskrit by valmiki, an apparently sanskrit name rather than in a Tamil or some other dravidian language by someone like Kamban? If brahmins originated in south India and were african+yedda+etc., why did they give all respect to the vedas and other scriptures all written in sanskrit, an alien tongue, and that too from the dim past, till today? Why was it that the brahmins did not think of learning their mother tongue (whether african, yedda, or anything)? Since vishnu was named as மால் in early tamil vaishnavite devotional hymns, it probably became a custom to picturize vishnu as dark coloured, மால் perhaps meaning dark also; valmiki's aim was just to depict a prince and he does not, to the best of my knowledge, describe the skin colour of any of the four except saying mahAtEjaH (very brilliant). The depiction of Rama as dark coloured (and as green coloured in "kolu bommais" since the last few decades), is a fashion trend possibly, to give the vishnu-like attributes to Rama. In the case of M.Bh. most of the place names do not belong to south India, and there is specific reference to the south as well as some areas in the NW. I would like to know how you view this point. Just as it is possible that africans reached the south Indian shores through sea, it is also possible that Australian aboriginees might have colonized south India in the pre-historic past. Srilanka's existence was well-known to Ashoka in that he sent his children Mahinda and Sanghamitra, his children, as emissaries to Lanka. Hence, it may not be unacceptable to consider that the existence of a land by name Lanka (lankaa f. in sanskrit means an unchaste woman.) was known even in the north of India from times before Ashoka itself and with some poetic imagination, and news filtering through for generations, valmiki could have imagined an island, a very prosperous city and all that. Are all hindu gods and goddesses dark coloured? No, possibly. If so, how do we explain the change from white=bad; black=good, to sugriva being golden coloured in Valmiki ramayana itself?