MGS Narayanan, scientific voice in Kerala's historiography, dead
MGS Narayanan
, one of India's most distinguished historians and former chairman of the
Indian Council of Historical Research
(ICHR), who made seminal contributions to
Kerala historiography
, passed away at his residence at Malapparamba on Saturday morning. He was 92.
Narayanan broke new ground in Kerala history studies by strongly advocating for evidence-based or scientific history writing and adopting it as the cornerstone of his research.
He had been suffering from age-related ailments for the past few years and passed away at 9.42 a.m. The funeral was held at the Mavoor Road crematorium at 4.37pm on Saturday.
Narayanan's authoritative treatises on medieval history, including his seminal research on the Chera dynasty, stand as a beacon for objective, source-based historical writing, for which he meticulously studied around 150 inscriptions and discovered about 30 new ones.
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by Taboola
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Born on Aug 20, 1932, in Ponnani, as Muttayil Govindamenon Sankara Narayanan, his father KP Govinda Menon was a doctor. His mother passed away when he was seven and he spent his childhood at his maternal home in Neduva-Parappanangadi.
He first attended school in the third grade at Neduva Elementary School, having been tutored at home by his father's friend Parameswaran master until then. He joined AV High School in Ponnani, his father's place, for the second form and passed the SSLC examination in 1947. During high school, he was passionate about poetry and literature.
In 1947, he joined Guruvayurappan College in Kozhikode for intermediate studies, where his interest in history was sparked by history teacher KV Krishna Iyer. He later joined Farook College for BA in Economics and subsequently moved to Kerala Varma College in Thrissur. After completing his degree, he took MA in History from Madras Christian College in 1953, securing the first rank. He earned his PhD from Kerala University in 1973.
MGS began his official career as a teacher at Guruvayurappan College, Kozhikode, and joined Calicut University in 1968, where he served as lecturer, reader, and later professor (1976), heading the department of history from 1970 until his retirement in 1992.
In 1974–75, he served as a Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellow at the prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and went on to serve as visiting professor at the University of Moscow, Leningrad University, and Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (1994–95).
In 1990, he became the member secretary of the Indian Council of Historical Research and served as chairman of ICHR during the Vajpayee govt from 2001 to 2003.
He was closely associated with the Indian History Congress and served as general secretary during 1983–1985. He also served as director general of the Centre for Heritage Studies in Tripunithura.
His major works include 'Perumals of Kerala', 'Indian Charithra Parichayam', 'Sahitya Aparadhangal', 'Kerala Charithrathinte Adisthaana Shilakal', 'Kozhikkodinte Katha', 'Secular Jaatiyum Secular Matavum', and 'Janaadhipatyavum Communisavum', among others.
He published around 200 research papers in national and international journals. He participated as an observer in the Kodungallur excavations (1969–70) and discovered and published a Brahmi inscription of Bindusara from Sanchi and several medieval Vattezhuttu inscriptions of Kerala.
He is survived by wife VC Premalatha; children N Vijayakumar (Retd. Air Force Officer, currently in the US) and N Vinaya (Mohiniyattam teacher, Bangalore); and in-laws Durga (HR vice chairperson, US) and Manoj Ramanujan (IT consultant, Bangalore). The late
historian
M Gangadharan was his maternal uncle.
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