Alvappillai Veluppillai (21 November 1936 – 1 November 2015) was a Sri Lankan Tamil academic, historian and author.

Early life and family

Veluppillai was born on 21 November 1936 in Puloly in northern Ceylon. ^{[1] [2]} He was the son of Veluppillai Alvappillai. ^[1] He was educated at Puttalai Tamil School (1941–44), Puloly Boys' English School (1945-52) and Hartley College (1953–54). ^[1] After school he joined the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya in 1955, graduating in 1959 with a first class BA honours degree. ^{[1] [2]} He was a student of K. Kanapathypillai. ^[2] He received a PhD degree from the university in 1962 after producing a thesis titled A Study of the Language of Tamil Inscriptions of Catavarman Cuntarapantiyan and Maravarman Kulacekaran (1251–1350 AD). ^{[1] [3]} He entered the University of Oxford in 1962 as student of Thomas Burrow, receiving a D.Phil degree in 1964 for his thesis A Study of the Language of Tamil Inscriptions of the period 800 to 920 AD. ^{[1] [3]} On 31 May 1996 Veluppillai received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University, Sweden ^[4]

Veluppillai married Meenatchi. ^[1] They had two children (Sivapriyai and Arulalan). ^[1]

Career

Veluppillai joined the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya in 1959 as an assistant lecturer in Tamil. ^[1] He passed the Ceylon Civil Service in 1961 and was selected to join the service but chose to continue with his academic work. ^[1] He visited the Annamalai University and University of Madras and studied, along with K. Indrapala, epigraphy at Chief Epigraphist Office of the Archaeological Survey of India in Mysore in the 1960s. ^{[1] [2]}

Veluppillai was promoted to lecturer (1964), senior lecturer (1970) and associate professor (1976). ^[1] He served as head of the Department of Tamil at the University of Sri Lanka Peradeniya campus/ University of Peradeniya twice, 1977–81 and 1982–83. ^[1] During this period he was also senior fellow at the Dravidian Linguistics Association (1973–74); visiting professor at the University of Kerala's Department of Linguistics (1973–74); visiting international senior professor at the International Institute of Tamil Studies in Madras (1980); and Commonwealth Academic Fellow at the University of Edinburgh's Department of Linguistics (1982–83). ^{[1] [2]}

Veluppillai joined the University of Jaffna in 1984 as professor of Tamil. ^{[1] [2]} He was head of the university's Department of Tamil from 1984 to 1990. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

Veluppillai was guest professor at Uppsala University's Department of History of Religions between 1990 and 2000. ^{[1] [3]} He received an honorary degree from the university in 1996. ^{[1] [3]} He lectured at the University of Virginia between 2000 and 2002. ^[1] He joined the Arizona State University in 2002 as a faculty associate in the Department of Religious Studies. ^{[1] [3]}

After retirement in 2009 Veluppillai lived with his children and grandchildren in the USA. ^[2] He suffered head injuries after falling in the bathroom of his home and died at a San Francisco hospital on 1 November 2015. ^[2]

Works

Veluppillai wrote several books and articles on Sri Lankan Tamil literature, history and politics. ^{[3] [5]}

• An Outline of Tamil Literary Thought (Tamil) (1965)
• A Historical Grammar of Tamil (Tamil) (1966)
• Inscriptions and Tamil Studies (Tamil) (1971)
• Ceylon Tamil Inscriptions, Part I (1971)
• Ceylon Tamil Inscriptions, Part II (1972)
• Pandya Inscriptions - A Language Study (1972)
• Study of the Dialects in Inscriptional Tamil (1976, Dravidian Linguistics Association)
• Epigraphical Evidence(s) for Tamil Studies (1980, International Institute of Tamil Studies)
• Essays on the Religion of the Tamils (Tamil) (1980)
• Early Sri Lanka Tamil Literary Works and their Historical Background (Tamil) (1986)
• Religious Traditions of the Tamils (1995)
• Munnicuvaram (Munnesvaram) Kovil: Its History, Ceremonies and Layout (1995)
• Buddhism Among Tamils of Pre-Colonial Tamilakam and Ilam, (2002, Uppsala University, co-editors Peter Schalk and Ira Nakacami)
• The Fear of the Demand for One Country, Two States, and Equal Individual Opportunity (2003)
• Reflections on the shedding of Tamil blood for fifty years in Sri Lanka (2006)
• Reflections on the national flag of Sri Lanka and State terrorism (2006)
• Reflections on the Buddha and the myth of the Sinhala Buddhist origin (2006)
• Pandya Rule at the Beginning of Ancient Lankan History (2006)

References