and the National Fellowship of the Indian Council of Historical Research in 1992 for his work on the Tamil Brahmi inscriptions.

In August 1987, he became the Editor of the Tamil daily, Dinamani, where he succeeded A.N. Sivaraman, who held the post for over 45 years.

In the last three decades of his life, he devoted himself to the study of India’s early writing systems. He kept in active touch with leading scholars of early India, including the historian Romila Thapar and the Finnish specialist on the Indus Valley Script, Asko Parpola.

Also Read The earliest inscription in Malayalam

‘The Indus Script - Texts, Concordance and Tables,’ compiled by Iravatham Mahadevan with a grant from the Indian Council of Historical Research and published by the Archaeological survey of India in 1977, continuesto be a definitive and an indisputable resource for Indus Valley scholarship.

His ‘Early Tamil Epigraphy’, first published jointly by Harvard University and Cre-A in 2003 and later by the Central Institute of Classical Tamil as a thoroughly revised version in 2014, is regarded as the most authoritative work on early South Indian epigraphy. Mr Mahadevan also established the Indus Research Centre at the Roja Muthiah Research Library with his personal funds.

Also Read Unearthing stories from stone

Mr Mahadevan was awarded the Padma Shri in April 2009.

A man of letters, principles, and philanthropy, he founded the Vidyasagar Educational Trust, in memory of his late son, to support under-privileged students.

Read all of Mr Mahadevan's articles with The Hindu here.