Although only holding academic degrees in Sanskrit and Malayalam, and having no formal training as a historian, Elamkulam is considered one of the pioneers of modern Kerala historiography.

[5][3] Born in Elamkulam village in Travancore to Krishna Kurup and Puthen Purackal Nanukutty  Amma on 8 November 1904.

[8] He started his career as a school teacher and later became lecturer in Malayalam at Government Arts College, Thiruvananthapuram.

[citation needed] Elamkulam had studied comprehensively Old/Early Malayalam - Vatteluttu inscriptions from the ninth century CE, and with the help of literary texts, claimed they belonged to a single line of kings ("the Kulasekharas") that ruled Kerala from Kodungallur.

[3] He proposed a unitary or imperial state model, emphasising centralised administration, for the Kulasekhara kingdom.

Recently (2002), suggestions pointing to the other extreme, that the king at Kodungallur had only a "ritual sovereignty" and the actual political power rested with "a bold and visible Brahmin oligarchy" has emerged.