thiruvananthapuram famous linguist and padma shri awardee vellayani arjunan died due to age related ailments here on wednesday he was 90 he had been a venerable presence in the literary and academic circles in the state he was honoured with padma shri in 2008 arjunana had authored forty books in different genres including poetry short story essays literary criticism and research articles he had obtained postgraduate degrees in malayalam english and hindi and pg diplomas in telugu kannada and tamilhe began his career as a research assistant in the kerala lexicon department he also served as the director of state institute of encyclopaedic publicationsarjunan was also the director of the state institute of languages and the school of communication and information science at mahatma gandhi university in kottayamarjunan was born to p shankara panicker and p narayani in 1933 he did his primary schooling at mudippura nada lower primary school at vellayani he completed his higher education at government arts college and university college in thiruvananthapuram he is survived by wife radhamani and children and grandchildren the funeral was held at his residencechief minister pinarayi vijayan condoled the death of vellayani arjunan he said that the demise of arjunan who gave invaluable contributions to language and culture is a huge loss