15 Facts About Iravatham Mahadevan

Iravatham Mahadevan was an Indian epigraphist and civil servant, known for his decipherment of Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions and for his expertise on the epigraphy of the Indus Valley civilisation.

Iravatham Mahadevan was born on 2 October 1930 in a Tamil Brahmin family of Thanjavur district.

Iravatham Mahadevan successfully passed the Indian Administrative Service examinations held in 1953 and was allotted to the Tamil Nadu cadre.

Iravatham Mahadevan worked as an Assistant Collector in Coimbatore district and Sub-Collector at Pollachi.

In 1958, Iravatham Mahadevan was transferred to Delhi as Assistant Financial Adviser in India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry serving from 1958 to 1961.

In 1961, Iravatham Mahadevan was posted to Madras as Deputy Secretary in Government of Tamil Nadu's Industries Department and served as Director of Handlooms and Textiles Department from 1962 to 1966.

Iravatham Mahadevan first published his study of Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions at Pugalur in 1965 following those of Mangulam, the next year.

In 1970, Iravatham Mahadevan was offered the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship to do his doctoral research on the Indus Script.

Iravatham Mahadevan continued his research even after his fellowship ended and published his first book Indus Script: Concordance and Tables in 1977.

Iravatham Mahadevan wrote over 40 papers to further the Dravidian hypothesis of the Indus Script and argues for a continuity between the written records of Indus and the oral transmissions from the Rig Veda.

Subrahmanya Aiyer that the writings found in the caves of Tamil Nadu in a script similar to Brahmi are a variant of Brahmi, which Iravatham Mahadevan calls Tamil Brahmi, and in ascertaining that the language of the script is indeed Tamil.

Iravatham Mahadevan went on to read the names and titles of several generations of Pandiya and Chera kings in Tamil Brahmi writings, all corroborated in early Tamil literature.

Iravatham Mahadevan was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship in 1970 for his research in Indus script and the National Fellowship of the Indian Council of Historical Research in 1992 for his work on Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions.

Iravatham Mahadevan received the Padma Shri award from the Government of India in 2009 for arts.

Iravatham Mahadevan was conferred the Campbell Medal by the Asiatic Society of Mumbai, formerly the Royal Asiatic Society, in November 2014.