[6] Seshadri was born on 3 February 1900 at Kulithalai, an ancient village with history dating back to the Cholas of the 9th century CE, in the present-day Karur district of the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, in a Brahmin family, to Namagiri Ammal and Thiruvengadatha Iyengar, a school teacher, as the third of their five sons.
After graduation, he worked with the Mission for a year, but continued his studies at Presidency College for his master's degree and thereafter, for research under the renowned chemist, Biman Bihari Dey, during which period he won two research awards, the Curzon Prize and the William Wedderburn Prize, from the University of Madras.
[6] Before returning to India in 1930, he had short training stints in Austria on organic microanalysis with Fritz Pregl, a Nobel laureate, and in Edinburgh on alkaloid Retrorsine with George Barger, a Royal Society fellow.
[8] Back in India, he continued his work on plant chemistry as a research scholar of the University of Madras at Government College of Agriculture, Coimbatore where he stayed for four years.
[6] The onset of World War II in 1941 affected his work as the chemicals were short in supply and the department of chemistry at the university was taken over by the British Army, which forced him to move first to Guntur in 1942 and then to Madras in 1943.
[7] The story of life has been published by Resonance, a journal of the Indian Academy of Sciences, under the title, Professor T R Seshadri — An Acharaya par excellence.
[10] He is credited with pioneering research on plant chemistry, primarily in oxygen heterocyclics, and contributed to the isolation and structural elucidation of flavanoid pigments.
[10] His researches and work experiences have been documented by way of over 1000 articles[6][11] and two books, Chemistry of Vitamins and Hormones[3] and Advancement of Scientific and Religious Culture in India.
[4] He mentored 160 students in their doctoral studies and, on his retirement, donated all the books in his personal library to the Chemistry department of the Delhi University.