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MEDIÆVAL JAINISM Elācārya. Moreover, the intimate association of the Jaina gurus with the Tamil people seems to have begun only after the time of Samantabhadra. Hence we cannot conceive of Kondakundācārya visiting the south in order to inspire a great Tamil poet to present his work to the Sangham at Madura. A second Elācārya has already figured in the above pages. He was the disciple of Sridharadeva, and is supposed to have lived in circa A.D. 910.2 This age would be too late for Ēlācārya, the contemporary of Tiruvalluvar, whose lowest age, according to some, is the sixth or seventh century A.D. Then there is another Elācārya, mentioned in a record assigned by Rice to circa A.D. 1060. Nothing more is known about this person than that his lay disciple was Bindayya.
Secondly, the name as it appears in Tamil literature and in Ceylon chronicles is not ēlācārya but Elesingha, Elala, and Aļāra. It is said that the profound scholarship of Tiruvaļļuvar attracted the notice of Elesingha, a great merchant who carried an overseas trade. This merchant accepted Tiruvalluvar as his preceptor ; and at the former's request Tiruvalluvar composed the great Kural. According to the Ceylonese chronicles it was Eļēra or Aļāra (which word seems to have been a corruption of the Tamil Elēla), a Cola nobleman, who invaded Ceylon, slew the local ruler Asēla, and ruler over that island from B.C. 145 to B.C. 101.6 The Tamil
1. Upadhye, op. cit., pp. xx-xxi.
2. See also E. C., Yd. 28, p. 56. But Rice assigns this record to circa A.D. 1100.
3. Dikshitar, Studies in Tamil Literature, p. 38. 4. E. C., IV. Ng. 67, p. 129. 5. Dikshitar, ibid., p. 128.
6. Geiger, Mahavamso, Intr. p. xxxvii (1912, ed) ; Dikshitar, ibid., pp. 129-130.
