[INDOLOGY] Demise of Professor Edwin Gerow

Wed Jul 30 12:40:00 UTC 2025

 What a sad news.
I had the privilege to meet Prof. Gerow more than twenty years ago, as one of the members of my thesis committee, and the chance, over the years, to discuss with him various issues about Indian poetry and philology. We shared a passion for poetics (philosophy) beyond rhetorics, and for the multiple echoes of linguistic ideas across authors and eras.
Another commun passion was translating: translation as a challenge for interpretation, translating the nuances. And French language. Edwin Gerow was fond of French language and literature! These last years I was honoured to discuss with him about his (unpublished) translation in French of Nāgeśa - a tribute to the memory of Louis Renou, whose student he had been in the late 1950s or early 1960s.
Always ready to generously help students and colleagues, I will remember him for his marvellous esprit de finesse! 
And his irresistible accent, and smile wile saying "au revoir"!

Tender thoughts for Cheryl, and for all Gerow's friends on the list,
Silvia

Silvia D'Intino
CNRS, Paris
     Le dimanche 27 juillet 2025 à 23:30:35 UTC+2, Robert P. GOLDMAN via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> a écrit :  

 Dear Colleagues,
I am deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Edwin Gerow. In him we have lost yet another towering Sanskrit scholar of his generation. His work on various aspects of Sāhitya and his monumental Glossary of Indian Figures of Speech  constitute some of the most useful and significant contributions to the study and teaching of Sanskrit literature.   The latter volume was a constant aid in my Kāvya seminars to explain to students the nuances of  Sanskrit’s vast and varied array of alaṅkāra-s and Ed’s illustrations of them from English literature were often enlightening and amusing as they also showed his considerable learning in that field as well. My students and I were especially fond of his frequent quoting of Oliver Onions.
Ed was my second year Sanskrit teacher in 1963–1964 when he was  a Lecturer in Sanskrit at Columbia and used to commute from his then regular position at the University of Rochester, a position I also briefly held a few years later . He was a brilliant and very exacting teacher and very generous to his students. But woe to those who did not put in the preparation that he demanded of us as he did of himself.  One of my fellow students  regularly took a tranquilizer before each class as Ed could be quite sharp in his reaction to our classroom performance. I recall him saying cuttingly on one occasion to a student, “Sanskrit is a beautiful language. I suggest that you learn to pronounce it properly.”
In the 1970’s  we sometimes had rather tense  disagreements over my  interest  in looking at the psychology of the characters and their interrelations  in Sanskrit poems and dramas. At one memorable AOS meeting, during the discussion of one of my presentations, Ed asked in a somewhat irritated way. “So do you expect me to psychoanalyse Bhavabhūti?”  When I responded that that was indeed what I was suggesting, he was rather annoyed.
But later on he came to show interest in my work and we became good friends.  He used to accompany his beloved wife Cheryl to the San Francisco Bay Area on her annual trips to attend legal meetings and on those occasions he would always contact me and my wife and we would  join them for dinner and conversation, mainly but—sparing Cheryl—not entirely, about Sanskrit.
So, for me,  Ed was a teacher, a mentor,  a highly respected scholar, an inspiration and a friend.  I will miss him as will many in the Indological community
Dr. R.P. GoldmanWilliam and Catherine Magistretti Professor of Sanskrit EmeritusandProfessor in the Graduate SchoolDepartment of South and Southeast Asian StudiesThe University of California at Berkeley

On Jul 26, 2025, at 11:46 AM, Fitzgerald, James via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
Yes, another sad passing! Indeed it was good karma that led me to Ed Gerow in 1975, when I returned to Chicago from a dissertation-year in Pune and found him newly ensconced up in Harper Tower. He introduced me to the Aṣṭādhyāyī and the Mahābhāṣya and it was a delightful tutorial. We intended to speak only Sanskrit for the year, but that resolve soon dissipated in the heat of our saṃvādas. He became one of the members of my dissertation committee and remained a wry friend in the years after we were both long gone from Chicago. I wrote my paper "Saving buddhis in Epic Mokṣadharma" for his 2015 Festschrift (IJHS, 19: 97-137) with his Huguenot background in mind ("by grace alone, through faith alone"). Learned, astutely penetrating and exacting, he was exceptionally inspiring among the many outstanding teachers I had the privilege of studying with at the University of Chicago.
-- 
James L. Fitzgerald
DasProfessor of Sanskrit, Emeritus
Department of Classics
Brown University

On Thu, Jul 24, 2025 at 11:31 AM Herman Tull via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

This is very sad news. I can only imagine there are many on this list whose lives Prof. Gerow touched, and who benefited from his great erudition.
For those interested, I have attached the brief introduction to the volume Deepak referred to, which includes some details of Edwin Gerow's life and scholarship.
Herman Tull, PhDPrinceton, NJ

On Thu, Jul 24, 2025 at 8:41 AM Deepak Sarma via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

I was fortunate to see Prof. Gerow in January of this year. I was lalso ucky to have studied with him when he taught at Reed College in Portland Oregon. If it were not for him I would not have studied Madhva/ Davita Vedanta. 

I am glad that we were able to publish a Festschrift of sorts:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/i24631627

Ācāryasamarpaṇam: Studies in Honor of Edwin Gerow
International Journal of Hindu Studies
Vol. 19, No. 1/2, Special Issue: Studies in Honor of Edwin Gerow (APRIL–AUGUST 2015)

I am very sad indeed but so grateful to have crossed paths with him.

Here he is in January 2025.

Deepak Sarma, Ph.D.
deepaksarma.com

Pronouns: they/them/their

Inaugural Distinguished Scholar in the Public Humanities, Case Western Reserve University

Professor of Religious Studies at Case Western Reserve University, College of Arts and Sciences
Professor of Bioethics at Case Western Reserve University, School of Medicine (secondary appointment)
President Elect of the Grateful Dead Studies Association
Curatorial Consultant at Cleveland Museum of Art’s Department of Asian Art

Psychedelic Use, Law, and Spiritual Experience (PULSE) Affiliated Researcher
At The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School 

Contact:
Dr. Deepak Sarma
Department of Religious Studies
Tomlinson Hall
2121 Martin Luther King, Jr., Drive
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, OH 44106-7112
216-368-4790
deepak.sarma at case.edu

> On Jul 24, 2025, at 8:01 AM, Lyne Bansat-Boudon via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
> 
> Dear all,
> I have just sent the very sad news of Prof Gerow demise, but through a wrong way, and without the proper subject. ( you will find it in the last mail concerning Carmen Spiers' recent book)
> My apologies . 
> Best wishes 
> Lyne
> 
> 
> Envoyé à partir de Outlook pour iOS
> 
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology

_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology

_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology

_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology

Dr. R.P. GoldmanWilliam and Catherine Magistretti Professor of Sanskrit EmeritusandProfessor in the Graduate SchoolDepartment of South and Southeast Asian StudiesThe University of California at Berkeley

_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20250730/7afdce28/attachment.htm>