H-ASIA: Professor Friedhelm Hardy

[Frank Conlon]

H-ASIA
August 25, 2004

Passing of Professor Fred (Friedhelm) Hardy, August 4, 2003
-----
Ed. note: The sad and unexpected news of Fred Hardy's sudden death reached
me yesterday, but as I was enroute to Seattle, I could not follow up with
a proper obituary notice.  I am grateful to Professor Sanjay Subhrahmanyam
for forwarding the following item.  I would encourage any members who have
access to the entire bibliography of Hardy's works to share that with us
as he was a scholar who made contributions across disciplinary lines and
his essays may be found in many unexpected sites in the humanities and
social sciences. The funeral was held on August 13 at Christ the King
parish church in Reading.                                            FFC
*************************************************************************
From: Sanjay Subrahmanyam <sanjay.subrahmanyam at st-cross.oxford.ac.uk>

Herewith a short obituary of Friedhelm (Fred Hardy), most taken from his
own web page.

This is to inform you of the sudden and shocking death by cardiac arrest
in Reading (UK) of Professor Friedhelm Hardy of King's College London on
4 August 2004, at the age of 61.  After completing his D. Phil in Oxford,
Professor Hardy joined King's College in 1973 and rose to the position of
Professor of Indian Religions.

Professor Hardy taught, at the undergraduate level, general courses on
Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism and more advanced courses on the goddess
and woman in India and on Mahayana Buddhist sutra literature. At
postgraduate level, apart from supervising theses, he gave classes on
texts in various Indian languages, most recently on Jaina texts. A gifted
linguist, he dealt with materials in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Apabhramsa,
Tamil, Manipravala and Marathi.

His overriding concern, as he wrote, was "the exploration of the
structures underlying the surface-isms that conventionally have been
used to describe the traditional religions of India."  Instead of
assuming two or three fixed systems, he sought to trace the enormously
complex lines of religious dynamism that express themselves in a large
number of traditions.

An application of this approach can be found in _The Religious Culture
of India: Power, Love and Wisdom_ (Cambridge, CUP 1994).  His more
specialised interests lay in South Indian Vaishnava religion,
particularly in the interaction between Sanskrit and Tamil culture
(see his _Viraha-bhakti: The early history of Krsna devotion in South
India_, Delhi, OUP 1983).  For a number of years he had been working on
the literature associated with South Indian Vishnu temples.  Another
area of his research were Jaina ideas and story literature. He had a
keen interest in the many ways in which India has influenced the rest
of the world, and, to quote him again, was "eager to see as much of
traditional Indian culture as possible before it gets totally destroyed
by factories, lorries and pollution."

Friedhelm Hardy is survived by his wife Aruna, and his children Nikhil
and Monica.


Sanjay Subhrahmanyam
St. Cross
Oxford University
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Books written or edited by the late Friedhelm Hardy:

AUTHOR       Hardy, Friedhelm.
TITLE        The religious culture of India : power, love, and wisdom /
                Friedhelm Hardy.
PUBL INFO    Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
PHYS DESC    xiii, 613 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
TRACED SER   Cambridge studies in religious traditions ; 4.
ISBN         0521441811 (hardback)

AUTHOR       Hardy, Friedhelm.
TITLE        Viraha-bhakti : the early history of K{242}r{242}s{242}na
              devotion in South India / Friedhelm Hardy.
PUBL INFO    Delhi : Oxford, 1983.
PHYS DESC    xxi, 692 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.
ISBN         0195612515


AUTHOR       Hardy, Friedhelm.
TITLE        Viraha-bhakti : the early history of K{242}r{242}s{242}na
              devotion in South India / Friedhelm Hardy.
PUBL INFO    Delhi : Oxford University Press, 2001.
PHYS DESC    xxi, 692 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.
TRACED SER   Oxford India paperbacks.
ISBN         0195649168.

TITLE        The world's religions: the religions of Asia/ [edited by
                Friedhelm Hardy]
PUBL INFO    London: Routledge, 1990.
PHYS DESC    vi, 297 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
NOTE         Reprinted from The world's religions, ed. by S.Sutherland,1988.
ISBN         0415058155.
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