[INDOLOGY] Tom Hopkins

[Geoffrey Samuel]

I was very sad to hear from the INDOLOGY list of Tom Hopkins’ passing. I have warm memories of meeting Tom in Oxford in 1999, towards the end of his time as Director at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. I was a Tibetan Buddhist specialist trying to find my way around the early Indian material, and he helped me a great deal. Among other things, he showed me an unpublished manuscript he had been working on (‘Some Reflections on Hinduism’) which put together Indian archaeology and early textual material in an innovative and creative way. Years later, with Tom’s permission, I reused key elements of his argument in a lecture series at Oxford and in my own resulting book (Origins of Yoga and Tantra). I regret that Tom himself never published this material; hopefully some of it went into the revised version of The Hindu Religious Tradition. Unfortunately, although we corresponded on occasion, we never met again, but the memory of a generous and creative spirit has stayed with me.
Geoffrey Samuel
Sydney, Australia


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