A. Velupillai

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. He was the son of Veluppillai Alvappillai. 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.

Veluppillai married Meenatchi. 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)