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Rh the first century A. D. The subjoined eulogistic verse usually attributed to Auvai, the renowned sister of Tiruvalluvar, is enough to discredit the truth and antiquity of the Tiruvalluvamalai:—

In the above quotation we find references to Appar, Sambandar, Sundarar, Manikkavachakar and Tirumular, the latest of whom lived in the second half of the ninth century. There are several other verses of this sort in praise of the Kural. This stanza makes Tiruvalluvar a contemporary of Manikkavachakar! What we are inclined to think is that the Tiruvalluvamalai or the 'garland of Tiruvalluvar', like every other account relating to this famous-moralist, is a strange mixture of doubtful traditions and absurd fictions. written by some later Dravidian author of the ninth century to popularize the celebrated work of Tiruvalluvar. Thus, it will be seen that the tradition which attributes the destruction of the third academy to poet Tiruvalluvar and in the reign of the Pandva king Ugra Peruvaludi, is not only absolutely unfounded, but also contrary to the statement in the Madura Stalapurana which ascribes to the same king the foundation of the first Sangam or academy.

For the extinction of the third academy we must look elsewhere. If the compilation of Purananuru