Noted Indian Scholar Iravatham Mahadevan Passes Away

Guwahati: Iravatham Mahadevan, 88, world’s leading Indian scholar on the Indus Valley Script passed away on Monday in Chennai after a brief illness. Mahadevan, in the last three decades of his life, was working on India’s early writing systems.

Mahadevan was a former member of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and was bestowed with the prestigious Padma-Shri award in April 2009. He is fondly remembered for his associations with Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Central government and Tamil Nadu governments.

Late Mr Mahadevan is survived by his son Sridhar Mahadevan and two grandchildren, Vandana Vidyasagar and Vinay Vidyasagar.

Among the notable awards secured by the scholar, nameable ones include the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship in 1970 which was offered to him for his research on the Indus script. He was also offered with the National Fellowship of the Indian Council of Historical Research in 1992 which he won for his work on the Tamil Brahmi inscriptions.

He was the Editor of the Tamil daily, Dinamani that he joined in August 1987 and held the post for over 45 years. He compiled ‘The Indus Script - Texts, Concordance, and Tables,’ with a grant from the Indian Council of Historical Research and published by the Archaeological Survey of India in 1977.

Another significant work of the scholar is ‘Early Tamil Epigraphy’ which was first published jointly by Harvard University and Cre-A in 2003 and by the Central Institute of Classical Tamil afterward.

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