Dr. Periyar Dasan or Dr. Abdullah (born Seshachalam; 21 August 1949 – 19 August 2013) was an Indian scholar, professor, eminent speaker, and activist from

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

. He propagated

atheism Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the Existence of God, existence of Deity, deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the ...

and rationalist ideologies for most part of his life and later converted to

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

. He has also appeared in around 15 Tamil-language films.

Early life and background

Seshachalam was born in a

Shaivite Shaivism (, , ) is one of the major Hindu traditions, which worships Shiva as the supreme being. It is the second-largest Hindu sect after Vaishnavism, constituting about 385 million Hindus, found widely across South Asia (predominantly in ...

family on 21 August 1949 at Agaram in

Perambur Perambur is a neighbourhood located in the northern region of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Etymology In Tamil language, Tamil, ''pirambu (பிரம்பு)'' means bamboo, and ''oor (ஊர்)'' means city or place. Before British Raj, B ...

, a neighbourhood in present-day

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

, India. He was attracted towards the rationalist ideals of Periyar E. V. Ramasamy, the founder of the

Dravidian movement Dravidian politics is the main political ideology in Tamil Nadu that seeks to safeguard the rights of the Dravidian peoples. Dravidian politics started in British India with the formation of the Justice Party on 20 November 1916 in Victoria ...

. During his days in Pachaiyappa’s College, he changed his original name to Periyar Dasan (ardent follower of Periyar). He was well-versed in Tamil literature, various religious studies, and English. He has authored around 120 books. He served as a professor in his

alma mater Alma mater (; : almae matres) is an allegorical Latin phrase meaning "nourishing mother". It personifies a school that a person has attended or graduated from. The term is related to ''alumnus'', literally meaning 'nursling', which describes a sc ...

, Pachaiyappa’s College, for 34 years and as a corporate trainer, psychologist, psychotherapist, and students counsellor for many years. In 1991, Dasan embraced

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

and added Siddhartha as a prefix to his name. He translated the

Dhammapada The ''Dhammapada'' (; ) is a collection of sayings of the Buddha in verse form and one of the most widely read and best known Buddhist scriptures.See, for instance, Buswell (2003): "rank among the best known Buddhist texts" (p. 11); and, "on ...

, a compilation of Buddhist virtues, authored by

B. R. Ambedkar Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (Bhīmrāo Rāmjī Āmbēḍkar; 14 April 1891 – 6 December 1956) was an Indian jurist, economist, social reformer and political leader who chaired the committee that drafted the Constitution of India based on t ...

, into

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

. This took him to learn

Pali Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...

and

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

. Taking everyone by surprise, he embraced

as his way of life on 11 March 2010 during a visit to

Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

and rechristened his name as Abdullah, and his wife Vasantha was given the name Fathima. Thereafter, he started giving a series of lectures on Islam. Before embracing Islam, he spent 10 years knowing the key aspects of that religion and learning the

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

and the

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

language.

Publications

Tamil

* Translator: Dr. Ambedkar's புத்தரும் அவரது தம்மமும் - Buddharum avarathu dhammamum - Buddha and his Dhamma. * Author: இந்திய மரபும் பார்ப்பன திரிபும் - Indhiya marabum paarpana thiriyum - Indian practice and Brahminical fudging. * Author: கல்வி கற்கும் பிள்ளையே கேளாய்... - Kalvi karkum pillaye kelaai... - Oh child being educated, listen...

Filmography

Death

Dasan died on 19 August 2013 at the age of 63, after fighting liver cancer. He is survived by wife Vasantha and two sons Valavan and Suratha. As per his last wish, his body was given to the Madras Medical College for Research on August 20. Immediately after death, his eyes were donated to Sankara Nethralaya.

References

External links

Blog
on

Blogger A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Dasan, Periyar Male actors in Tamil cinema Indian male film actors 1949 births 2013 deaths Converts to Islam from atheism or agnosticism Islam in Tamil Nadu Tamil Muslims