Bhubaneswar: Indologist R Balakrishnan’s book on anthropological study of Odisha Abadha Padachinha was released, here on Friday. The book is a Odia translation of Balakrishnan’s research articles published in various magazines over 30 years of his career as IAS officers in the state.
The advisor to Odisha Skill Development Authority Dr Subroto Bagchi unveiled the book in the presence of chief secretary AP Padhi, linguist Debi Prasanna Patnaik and Rajya Sabha member Soumya Ranjan Patnaik.
Dr. R. Balakrishnan is a part time researcher in the field of Indology, He has been consistently working for the last 30 years on the issues connected to prehistory of Tamils, Indus Valley Civilization, and Orissan studies. He follows a multi-disciplinary approach in reconstruction of past with specific focus on place name clusters.
Using comparative place name clusters as markers for past migrations he has published many research papers in internationally and nationally acclaimed research journals. He has done extensive research about various aspects of Konark Sun temple and the tribal origins of sun worship, ancient connections between Kalinga and Indonesia and many aspects of place names of Odisha. The publication of “Culture Atlas of Odisha”, Charles Grome’s Report, George Web’s Report, Documentation of Nabakalebara 2015 are among the Odisha related initiatives in which he has played key role in his official capacity.
His publication The High-west: Low-East: Dichotomy of Indus Cities: A Dravidian Paradigm puts forth multi-disciplinary evidence in favor of Dravidian Hypothesis. His Tamil book on Indus Valley Civilization has created wide awareness about the ancient civilization among the modern Tamils. The renowned Indus scholar, Thiru Iravatham Mahadevan hails this book as the “most remarkable among the Tamil works published so far on this subject”.
For his relentless research works, he was conferred the Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa) by Periyar Maniammai University.
Balakrishnan, a native of Natham near Madurai in Tamil Nadhu, is a creative writer too. A master degree holder in Tamil literature, he has Tamil publications like Anbulla Amma (1991), Siragukkul Vaanam (2012), Nattukkural (2016), Panamaayak Kalvan (2018) to his credit. A lyricist he is he has penned poems inspired by Thirukkural, a Tamil classic of 1330 couplets. His contribution to Orissan studies relates to South East Asian connection identifying the cultural eco- system of Kalinga and Indonesia.
