Iravatham Mahadevan
Iravatham Mahadevan (Tamil: ஐராவதம் மகாதேவன் [ʌjrɑːʋʌt̪ʌm mʌxɑːd̪eːʋʌn], transliteration: airāvatam makātēvan; born 1930) is an Indian epigraphist, specializing on the Indus script and Early Tamil epigraphy.
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[edit] Biography
Iravatham Mahadevan was born in 1930 in a Smartha Tamil Brahmin family of Thanjavur district.[1] He was born in British Burma where his father Iravatham was practising as a doctor.[1]
Mahadevan was educated in the town of Tiruchirapalli. After graduating in Science and Law, he joined Indian Administrative Service.[2]
Mahadevan deciphered the earliest Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions, and has tentatively suggested a derivation of Brahmi from the Indus script[citation needed][dubious ] rather than the conventional hypothesis which derives Brahmi from the Aramaic script.
A longtime civil servant, he used a fellowship opportunity to put together the first script concordance of Indian seals in 1970. 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".[3]
[edit] Awards and honors
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.[4]
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 from the Government of India in 2009 for arts.[5]
[edit] 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)
[edit] References
- ^ a b "Straight from the Heart - Iravatham Mahadevan: Interview with Iravatham Mahadevan". Varalaaru.com. http://www.varalaaru.com/Default.asp?articleid=740.
- ^ mahadevan
- ^ Gregory L. Possehl, Indus Age: The Writing System (1997), p. 130
- ^ Review of Mahadevan (2003).
- ^ "Honour for Iravatham Mahadevan". The Hindu. April 17, 2009. http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/17/stories/2009041756521800.htm. Retrieved 2009-07-04.
