He was awarded the Padma Shri (National honour) in 1989 by the Government of India for his valuable contribution to the field of Sanskrit research and education.

He was awarded the Pitti Muniswami Chetty Garu Gold Medal by Madras University for first rank in the Siromani exam with Advaita Vedanta as specialisation (1949).

He went on to earn his Master of Arts Degree in Sanskrit (Classical Literature and Alankara as specialisations) from Nagpur University (1951).

Concurrently, from 1997 onwards, he was the Chairman of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of Education, Govt.

[3] He visited and gave talks in many countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Italy, France, Germany, USA, UK, Bali (Indonesia), Nepal, South Africa, Curaçao (Netherlands Antilles), Trinidad[4] & Tobago and Canada.

[6] Venkatachalam published about 100 research papers related to such different fields of Indology as Literature, Literary Criticism, Philosophy and Religion,[11][12] History,[13] Technical Sciences[14] etc., in English, Sanskrit and Hindi.

[15] With financial assistance provided by the Vikram University, he delivered lectures on some of the canons in various universities/Oriental institutes of Baroda, Bombay, Poona, Tirupati, Bangalore, Calcutta, Santiniketan, Allahabad, Jaipur etc.

For a span of ten years, from 1970 to 1981, Venkatachalam spearheaded the planning of the Project of Research on the lost works of the polymath and patron of learning, Paramara King Bhoja (11th century).