Iravatham Mahadevan (2 October 1930 – 26 November 2018) 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
The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form 2600 BCE to 1900& ...
.
Early life
Iravatham Mahadevan was born on 2 October 1930 in a
Tamil Brahmin family of
Thanjavur district.
Mahadevan had his schooling in the town of
Tiruchirapalli and graduated in
Chemistry
Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the elements that make up matter to the compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, proper ...
from the
Vivekananda College, Chennai and law from the
Madras Law College. Mahadevan successfully passed the
Indian Administrative Service
The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is the Public administration, administrative arm of the All India Services of Government of India. Considered the premier civil service of India, the IAS is one of the three arms of the All India Services ...
examinations held in 1953 and was allotted to the Tamil Nadu cadre.
Civil service
Mahadevan worked as an Assistant Collector in
Coimbatore district and Sub-Collector at
Pollachi.
In 1958, Mahadevan was transferred to
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
as Assistant Financial Adviser in India's Ministry of Commerce and Industry serving from 1958 to 1961.
In 1961, 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.
Mahadevan voluntarily retired from the civil service in 1980.
Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions
According to an interview given to an e-journal ''Varalaaru'', Mahadevan revealed that he started researching the
Tamil-Brahmi script following a casual suggestion by Indian historian
K. A. Nilakanta Sastri during a meeting in 1961.
Earlier, during his stint in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in Delhi in 1958–61, Mahadevan had become acquainted with the noted epigraphist and art historian
C. Sivaramamurti who was then working as a curator at the
Indian Museum next block. Sivaramamurti initiated him into the basics of South Indian epigraphy.
Mahadevan first published his study of Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions at
Pugalur
Pugalur is a municipality in Karur district in Tamil Nadu, India. It has two parts: Nanjai Pugalur and Punjai Pugalur. Nanjai refers to land with plenty of water, and Punjai refers to land with few bodies of water.
Geography
Pugalur is on th ...
in 1965 following those of
Mangulam, the next year.
In the same year, Mahadevan presented his paper on Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions in Madras which was later published as the book ''Corpus of the Tamil-Brahmi Inscriptions''.
After a brief period of research with the
Indus script, Mahadevan resumed his work on Tamil-Brahmi in 1992 with active support from the Tamil Nadu Archaeological Department. In 2003, he published a revised edition of the 1966 book which has since acquired the status of a classic.
Indus script
Mahadevan started his research on the
Indus script following a brush with
W. W. Hunter
Sir William Wilson Hunter (15 July 18406 February 1900) was a Scottish historian, statistician, a compiler and a member of the Indian Civil Service.
He is most known for ''The Imperial Gazetteer of India'' on which he started working in 1869, ...
's book on the Indus Script at India's Central Secretariat Library in Delhi.
In 1970, Mahadevan was offered the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship to do his doctoral research on the Indus Script.
Mahadevan continued his research even after his fellowship ended and published his first book ''Indus Script: Concordance and Tables'' in 1977.
Following a break from 1991 to 2003 to complete his research on Tamil epigraphy, Mahadevan resumed his studies again in 2003.
Gregory Possehl called Mahadevan a "careful, methodical worker, taking care to spell out his assumptions and methods. ... 'Tentative conclusions' and 'working hypotheses' are more his style than set ideas and fait accompli".
Significant contributions
Iravatham Mahadevan's ''The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables'' (1977) is the only openly available corpus of the Indus Script. He 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.
He was instrumental in firmly establishing the view of K.V. Subrahmanya Aiyer that the writings found in the caves of Tamil Nadu in a script similar to Brahmi are a variant of Brahmi, which Mahadevan calls Tamil Brahmi, and in ascertaining that the language of the script is indeed Tamil. 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.
Awards and honours
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.
In 1998, he was elected the president of the Annual Congress of the Epigraphical Society of India and in 2001 he became the general president of the
Indian History Congress. He received the
Padma Shri award
Padma Shri (IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is conferred ...
from the Government of India in 2009 for arts. He was conferred the
Tolkappiyar award for lifetime achievement in classical Tamil by the Government of India for the year 2009–2010.
He was conferred the Campbell Medal by the Asiatic Society of Mumbai, formerly the Royal Asiatic Society, in November 2014.
A bronze bust of Mahadevan was created by artist G. Chandrasekaran and placed at the
Roja Muthiah Research Library.
Publications
* ''Corpus of Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions'' (1966)
* ''The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables'' (1977)
* ''Early Tamil Epigraphy : From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D.'' (
Harvard Oriental Series, 62) (2003)
* ''Early Tamil Epigraphy : Tamil-Brahmi Inscriptions''. Revised and Enlarged Second Edition: Volume 1 (
Central Institute of Classical Tamil) (2014)
* ''Akam and Puram : 'Address' Signs of the Indus Script'' (2010)
* ''Dravidian Proof of the Indus Script via the Rig Veda: A Case Study'' (2014)
*''Toponyms, Directions and Tribal Names in the Indus Script'' (
Archaeopress
Archaeopress is an academic publisher specialising in archaeology, based in Oxford. The company publishes multiple series of books and academic journals, including ''Archaeopress Archaeology'' and ''Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studi ...
) (2017)
See also
*
Early Indian epigraphy
References
External links
Biography at harappa.comThe Hindu
''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the sec ...
Magazine, Sunday, 4 February 2007.
An interviewAkam and Puram : ‘Address’ Signs of the Indus Script – presented at World Classical Tamil Conference, June 2010 – The Hindu
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mahadevan, Iravatham
1930 births
2018 deaths
Dravidologists
Indian epigraphers
Indian Indologists
Jawaharlal Nehru Fellows
People from Thanjavur district
Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts
Scholars from Tamil Nadu
Tamil scholars
Recipients of the Thiruvalluvar Award