Glowing tributes paid to epigraphist Iravatham Mahadevan

Vijayawada: Famous researcher of Indus Valley script and Tamil Brahmi script, veteran epigraphist and former IAS officer Iravatham Mahadevan, who died on November 26, was remembered and paid rich floral tributes by Dr E Siva Nagi Reddy, CEO, Cultural Centre Of Vijayawada and Amaravati on Thursday.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Reddy said that Iravatham Mahadevan, born in a village near Tiruchirappalli on October 2, 1930, joined All India Service in 1954 and resigned from the service in 1980 to pursue his research on the pictogram script of the seals of Indus Valley civilisation.

As an amateur numismatist, he began to collect coins as hobby which led him to study the label inscriptions on them. Subsequently, Mahadevan developed interest in South Indian scripts.

Thus, he started deciphering Tamil Brahmi inscriptions found on the rock-cut caves of Tamil Nadu and authored a book with the title ‘Early Tamil Epigraphy from the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century Common Era’ (CE) published by Harvard University in 2003.