MGS: A researcher who unshackled Kerala history from myths

MGS Narayanan, who breathed his last at his home in Kozhikode on Saturday, was a historian who broke away from liberated history from myths.  

Rejecting the methods prevalent until then, MGS took up the arduous task of searching for and reading through documents that lay unexamined in the archives of the past. He scientifically analysed the information obtained.

He made them public in a way that could be examined by the general public as well, presenting them in a comprehensive manner with a cause-and-effect relationship.

In his historical writing, MGS sought the immense and infinite possibilities between the known and the unknown. He didn’t dismiss anything that was known or existed. 

But sought evidence for everything. MGS didn’t write a single line of history without the support of documents. To master the evidence and documents, he learned various scripts, including Vattezhuthu, Kolezhuthu, Pali, and Prakrit.

MGS created admirers and critics through his firm stances and the precision of his arguments in writing and speech. And he was never swayed by any political affiliation. “Congressmen sacrificed historical research for money, while Marxists and Hindutva adherents surrendered it for ideological foolishness,” he once contended.