CHENNAI: Padma Shri award-winner and former Dinamani editor Iravatham Mahadevan passed away in his Chennai residence on Monday morning, following a brief illness. The 88-year-old scholar, best known for his pioneering work on Indus Valley and Tamil-Brahmi scripts, is survived by his son and grandchildren.
Mahadevan, who was born in 1930 at Manachanallur near Tiruchy, began his career as a civil servant in 1954. His 26 years of service even included a stint as assistant financial advisor in the Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
While he voluntarily hung his boots in 1980 to concentrate on research and academics, Mahadevan’s interest in epigraphy and early inscriptions began almost two decades earlier.
His first work on Tamil-Brahmi scripts was published in 1966. However, The Indus Scripts: Text, Concordance and Tables published in 1977 is considered as his magnum opus and continues to be the definitive text on the subject.
At a time where the Dravidian-Aryan dichotomy was a burning issue, Mahadevan will be remembered for his novel hypothesis in an interview to the Harappa.com in 1998.
“The modern speakers of the Dravidian languages are the result of millennia-long intermixture of races. There are no Aryans in India, nor are there any Dravidians,” he said, adding “You couldn’t racially separate any element of the Indian populus.”
Iravatham Mahadevan’s demise has evoked reactions from across the political spectrum.
In a statement, Chief Minister ‘Edappadi’ K Palaniswami remembered him as an honest IAS officer.
“He revealed the relationship between the Indus Valley script and the Dravidian language family,” Palaniswami said, expressing his condolences to Mahadevan’s family.
While Opposition Leader and DMK president M K Stalin remembered how former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi had praised Mahadevan’s work while speaking at the World Tamil Classical Language Conference in 2010, PMK founder S Ramadoss and CPI (M) State secretary K Balakrishnan said Mahadevan’s demise would be an irreparable loss for Tamil and epigraphy.