Alexander the Great and the Mount Meru and Chula legends
This short note by R. O. Winstedt (1940) examines the etymological and legendary connections between Alexander the Great, Mount Meru, and the Chula raids in Malay and Indonesian folklore.
Summary
Winstedt traces the link between the Alexander legend and the name Mahameru in the “Malay Annals” and Sumatran folk-lore, drawing on E. R. Bevan’s explanation in The Cambridge History of India (1922). Arrian records that Alexander, on his Indian campaign, encountered the Nysaeans, who claimed descent from worshippers of Dionysus; a neighbouring summit was called Meru, which Winstedt notes was a name Hinduism gave to many mountains, with Mahameru serving as the pivot of the universe in Hindu mythology (p. 153).
Winstedt then turns to the Chula element, observing that in the Malay legend a descendant of Alexander marries a daughter of Demang Lebar Daun, whose son-in-law had among his ancestors Raja Suran and Raja Chulan — generally identified as folk-lore reminiscences of the Chula raids of the eleventh century. He cites L. D. Barnett’s note on a Ceylonese prince whose name appears in Pali as Mahachuli, chulika, and chula, and in Sinhalese as Mahasilu, to support the identification of the Chula/Merah Silu variants found in Malay chronicles such as the “Chronicles of Pasai” (p. 153).