Life
Mahavidwan R. Raghava Iyengar was born in the village called Thennavarayan, Pudukottai District, Tamil Nadu. He devoted his entire time to the mastery of Tamil literature but was also well versed in Sanskrit. He attracted the attention of Prof. R. Ranganadam and Dewan Venkata Ranga Iyer who introduced him to Raja Bhaskara Sethupathi of Ramnad. At the age of 21, he was appointed Poet Laureate of the Sethu Samasthanam, a post he held for 42 years.
Raghava Iyengar took up the charge of reviving the fourth Tamil Sangam, where he was the promoter of Tamil Research. He was the editor of Sen Tamil and along with his cousin edited this journal for 3 years. He was the first to set the right norms for Tamil research which had a scientific basis. He wrote articles on Kamban, Valluvar and the female bards of Sangam literature. He wrote the biography of these poets, identified the cities mentioned in the Sangam works and established the correct authorship of many works of the Sangam age. He translated Kalidasa's 'Abhijñānaśākuntalam' (The Recognition of Sakuntala) and the Bhagavad Gita. His cousin, Rao Sahib M. Raghava Iyengar, was also a famous Tamil scholar.
He was conferred the titles of Bhasha Kavisekhara and Mahavidwan and received a presentation of Rs 1,000 for his poem "Pari kathai". At the age of 65, he was the pioneer to be appointed as the Head of the Tamil Research Dept. of Annamalai University. He proved for the first time that Karur was the capital of the Cheras in the Sangam age.
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