Padmanabha Pillai was born in 1865[1] in Sreekanteswaram, Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum).
He studied English, Tamil and Sanskrit and wrote Duryodhanavadham and Dharmaguptavadham at a young age.
The dictionary, which runs into more than 1600 pages, took twenty years to complete.
His son P. Damodara Pillai later compiled a concise version.
Padmanabha Pillai wrote around sixty books in his lifetime.