[INDOLOGY] sad news

[Madhav Deshpande]

This is very sad news. He and I were in frequent conversation. He was a
committed scholar and a helpful friend.

Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India

[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]


On Sat, Aug 1, 2026 at 10:52 AM Elisa Freschi via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Dear colleagues and friends,
>
> I write with a heavy heart to share the news of the passing of Elliot M.
> Stern, last Thursday. Elliot dedicated much of his life to Maṇḍana Miśra,
> since his PhD up to the publication of the critical edition (with
> commentary and subcommentaries) of the Vidhiviveka in 2023. Still, we
> continued to meet every week to read it and he was constantly improving on
> some manuscript reading or rethinking a difficult passage.
>
>  He has been a constant inspiration for me and I will miss him, his
> generosity, his incredibly encyclopaedic knowledge of Sanskrit philosophy,
> and even his auto-irony. I have also been using him as a paradigmatic case
> for my students whenever they wondered whether a university position was
> the only way to continue working in the field: "Who made the greatest
> contribution (by far) to the study of Maṇḍana? Not a professor, but Elliot
> Stern, who was working on him out of love and dedication and only on his
> free time".
>
> Best wishes,
>
> elisa (freschi)
> --
> **please consider the environment before using an LLM to generate a
> response to this e-mail**
>
> Dr. Elisa Freschi
>
> Associate Prof. of South Asian Philosophy
> Department of Philosophy
> University of Toronto
> Jackman Humanities Building,
> 170 St George Street
> ON M5R 2M8 Toronto (Canada)
> +1 647 451 2448
>
> http://elisafreschi.com
> Bluesky: @elisafreschi.bsky.social
> Philpapers: https://philpeople.org/profiles/elisa-freschi
>
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