Tamil writer D. Ravikumar paid rich tributes to Iravatham Mahadevan, an eminent scholar on the Tamil Brahmi script, for his immense contribution to India’s early writing systems.
Speaking at a function organised at Sega Art Gallery here on Wednesday, Mr. Ravikumar said that Mr. Mahadevan developed an interest in Indian epigraphy during his stint as an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer. He was considered one of the world’s leading and eminent scholars on the Tamil Brahmi and the Indus Valley scripts.
Mr. Mahadevan’s over 40 years research on the Indus script was published as a book in 2003 and is considered as an authoritative work on South Indian epigraphy.
At a time when only foreign researchers were working on Indus Valley scripts, Mr. Mahadevan’s research work and publications including the The Indus Script - Texts, Concordance and Tables , continues to be a major source for researchers across the world, he said.
Mr. Ravikumar called upon the Tamil Nadu Government to establish an Indus Research Centre in Chennai at the earliest.
Krishnaswamy Nachimuthu, senior researcher of Ecole Francaise D’Extreme-Orient; Y. Subbarayalu, head of the Indology Department, French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP); spoke.
