Biography
Iravatham Mahadevan was born in 1930 in a Smartha Tamil Brahmin family of Thanjavur district. He was born in British Burma where his father Iravatham was practising as a doctor.
Mahadevan was educated in the town of Tiruchirapalli. After graduating in Science and Law, he joined Indian Administrative Service.
Mahadevan deciphered the earliest Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions, and has tentatively suggested a derivation of Brahmi from the Indus script rather than the conventional hypothesis which derives Brahmi from the Aramaic script.
A longtime civil servant, he used a fellowship opportunity to put together the first script concordance of Indian seals in 1970. Gregory Possehl called Mahadevan a "careful, methodical worker, taking care to spell out his assumptions and methods. ... 'Tentative conclusions' and 'working hypotheses' are more his style than set ideas and fait accompli".
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