[INDOLOGY] Luis Gonzàlez-Reimann: 1948–2022

Thu Apr 7 14:18:17 UTC 2022

Dear Bob and other friends of Luis,

I was stunned and saddened when I saw your notice of Luis’ passing a few
minutes ago. I met with him a number of times and we conversed at length
about the *Mahābhārata* and related subjects. He was one of the most
thoughtful and engaging people I have ever known in the academy. From the
notes of others here who knew him better, I am glad but not surprised to
learn how he affected many others strongly and for the better. And thanks
to you and others for potent glimpses into the aura of his influence. Our
world is now smaller in a big way.

Jim Fitzgerald
--
James L. Fitzgerald
Das Professor of Sanskrit, Emeritus
Department of Classics
Brown University

On Tue, Mar 29, 2022 at 8:47 PM Jesse Knutson <jknutson at hawaii.edu> wrote:

> So beautifully said both of you. This is so sad. He was such a beautiful
> person, with great depth of both learning and character. I took Hindu
> Mythology with him in 1996. That was my first non-language course in the
> department and he was so generous with his learning, but also so kind and
> good-natured to me.
>
> I learned so much in that class and it was always so rewarding and fun to
> listen to him and interact with him. He started treating me like a friend
> even when I was still a stranger, and he was the same way throughout the
> time I knew him: an अकारणमित्र. It always felt good to talk with him.
>
> I remember seeing him with his family around town sometimes and you could
> tell that that they loved him so much, and that they all really enjoyed
> spending time together. My heart really goes out to them. The loss must be
> so painful and irreparable.
>
> But as you said, Bob, न खलु स उपरतः—it is really impossible to think of
> Luis without feeling affection toward him and it’s equally impossible to
> forget such a distinctive presence. Just thinking about him a little I can
> picture his face and his smile so clearly in my mind, and hear the sound of
> his voice, so he definitely lives on. And I am just one little vallabha
> among many many others. I think everybody who knew him was his vallabha.
>
> On Tue, Mar 29, 2022 at 11:47 PM Lauren Bausch <lauren.bausch at drbu.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear Bob,
>>
>> I am so sorry to hear this news. Luis was a kind teacher and friend, who
>> always took the time to ask, with great interest, how my work was going and
>> to share resources that he thought would be helpful. Many years ago he even
>> gave me a copy of his *Tiempo Cíclico y Eras del Mundo en la India. *He will
>> certainly be missed.
>>
>> With best wishes,
>> Lauren
>>
>> Lauren Bausch
>> Assistant Professor
>> Dharma Realm Buddhist University
>>
>> "Concepts are really monsters that are reborn from their fragments."
>> --Deleuze and Guattari, *What is Philosophy, *p. 140.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 29, 2022 at 12:54 PM Robert P. GOLDMAN <rpg at berkeley.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear List Members,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It is with great shock and sadness that I must report to you the sudden
>>> and unexpected loss of my former Ph.D. student and cherished colleague Dr.
>>> Luis Gonzàlez-Reimann who passed away as a result of a heart attack while
>>> on a family visit to his home town of Mexico City during the night of
>>> Saturday, March 26, 2022. It was exactly one week shy of  his 74th
>>> birthday.
>>>
>>> Luis completed his doctoral dissertation under my supervision in 1998
>>> with a specialization in Sanskrit after having earned his MA in Asian and
>>> North African Studies with a specialization in India at El Colegio de
>>> Mexico in 1986. Prior to turning his attention to the study of classical
>>> Indian language, religion, and literature, he had completed a Licentiate in
>>> Business Administration at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico in
>>> 1974.
>>>
>>> Luis was a well-known authority on Sanskrit epic and puranic literature
>>> and had a special interest and expertise in the various classical Indian
>>> theories of cyclical time. He published several books and articles in this
>>> field including *Tiempo cíclico y eras del mundo en la India* (1988), *La
>>> Maitrayaniya Upanisad: introduccíon, traducción y notas* (1992) and *The
>>> Mahabharata and the Yugas: India’s Great Epic Poem and the Hindu System of
>>> world Ages* (2002). His scholarly articles covered a number of critical
>>> issues in vedic, epic, literary, and puranic texts. He was a frequent
>>> contributor to the list.
>>>
>>> Prior to coming to Berkeley Luis served as a lecturer and research
>>> scholar at El Colegio de Mexico, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
>>> Mexico. The Universidad Iberoamericana and El Claustro de Sor Juana, all in
>>> Mexico City. During his time at Berkeley, he served the campus in a number
>>> of ways as a Lecturer and research scholar in the Religious Studies
>>> Program, the Center for South Asia Studies, and the Department of Spanish
>>> and Portuguese. But it was to the Department of South and Southeast Asian
>>> Studies that he most fully devoted his outstanding pedagogy, teaching a
>>> wide variety of undergraduate courses in Hinduism, Mythology, and the
>>> Indian Epics. Indeed, he was in the middle of his spring semester 2022
>>> offering of  “The Great Epics of India” when, at the end of spring
>>> break, he suddenly left us.
>>>
>>> Before devoting himself to the study of Indology, Luis was a significant
>>> figure in the Mexican youth countercultural scene  (*La Onda*)  during
>>> the turbulent ’60s especially in the area of rock music. He was
>>> instrumental in the launch of the journal *Piedra Rodante* based on its
>>> inspiration, *Rolling Stone* magazine, and was one of its reviewers and
>>> editors. He also served as a rock disc jockey for the UNAM radio station
>>> hosting a new daily show “La Respuesta Está en el Aire” with  a nod to
>>> Bob Dylan. He even ran his own rock music store “Yoko” where young Mexicans
>>> could acquire foreign rock albums.
>>>
>>> Luis was a kindly and beloved and teacher and a generous scholar always
>>> ready to help students and his colleagues with his vast knowledge of  Hinduism
>>> and its literature. It is difficult to express the depth of our sudden loss
>>> and the prospect of imagining our department without his gentle and caring
>>> presence. He will be deeply missed by his students, friends and colleagues.
>>>
>>>  Luis is survived by his wife Dr. Linda Hirshfeld, a Bay Area clinical
>>> psychologist and by his two grown sons, Eric and Ilan. Our thoughts and
>>> prayers are with them.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *na khalu sa uparato yasya vallabho janaḥ smarati *
>>>
>>> He is not truly gone whom loving friends remember.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Dr. R. P.  Goldman
>>> William and Catherine Magistretti Distinguished Professor Emeritus and
>>> Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School
>>> Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies MC # 2540
>>> The University of California at Berkeley
>>> Berkeley, CA 94720-2540
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
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> --
> ----------------
> Jesse Ross Knutson PhD
> Associate Professor of Sanskrit Language and Literature
> Department of Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures
> University of Hawai'i, Mānoa
> 461 Spalding
>
> It is creative apperception more than anything else that makes the
> individual feel that life is worth living. Contrasted with this is a
> relationship to external reality which is one of compliance, the world and
> its details being recognized but only as something to be fitted in with or
> demanding adaptation. Compliance carries with it a sense of futility for
> the individual and is associated with the idea that nothing matters and
> that life is not worth living. In a tantalizing way many individuals have
> experienced just enough creative living to recognize that for most of their
> time they are living uncreatively, as if caught up in the creativity of
> someone else, or of a machine.--Donald Winnicott, *Playing and Reality*
>
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