[INDOLOGY] [External] Re: sad news

Sun Aug 2 14:00:22 UTC 2026

Let me supplement what John, Elisa and others have said:

Elliot Stern (1948-2026)
I learned from Elliot Stern’s wife Christine Friday night that Elliot passed away the previous evening, on July 30, 2026. Elliot suffered from lung cancer for many years and finally succumbed to it. (He smoked heavily until he was about forty years old when Christine finally weaned him off it.) I last spoke with Elliot on July 15, fifteen days before he passed. He was barely able to breathe, which forced him to discontinue our conversation after about ten minutes. His chemo began failing more than a year earlier, so there was no stopping the metastases. He said he had discontinued his Sanskrit reading a few weeks earlier because he had no energy remaining to sit at his desk and open his books, plus he was on a stiff regimen of morphine. He was still, however, hopeful that he could get off them at some point and get back to work. In spite of that, he entered hospice a few days later. He is survived by Christine, who worked at the Penn bookstore for many decades and was a great help to all of us, his son William, of Philadelphia, and his daughter Rebecca, who lives in suburban Philadelphia.
Elliot was thoroughly devoted to his studies of Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā since he was a graduate student at Penn in the 1970s and 1980s, where I knew him well. Elliot was incredibly organized and systematic in everything he said or wrote. His PhD dissertation, which he completed in 1987, became the basis for his two-volume magnum opus, published thirty-six years later in Pondichery.
Vidhiviveka of Maṇḍanamiśra with its commentary Nyāyakaṇikā of Vācaspatimiśra and its commentaries Juṣadhvaṅkaraṇī and Svaditaṅkaraṇī of Parameśvara, IFP Collection Indologie n˚ 155. EFEO, 2023.

After he completed his dissertation, I commented to him on its length, 1750 pages. Most of the dissertation consisted of Elliot’s handwritten critical edition of some of this text. Elliot’s response to me was to cover his mouth on one side and whisper to me, “But Fred, you must remember that there are three blank pages.” Nevertheless, I was pleased that Elliot sent me a copy of the book when it finally came out a few years ago.

More recently, in Sept 2025, Elliot sent me a 355 page draft of the reconstruction of a manuscript of the Bhāvanāviveka of Maṇḍanamiśra with the ṭīkā of Bhaṭṭa Umbeka, a manuscript used by Ganganath Jha for his two-volume edition of 1922-1923. This is an important text because it describes bhāvanā as a dynamic or efficient force that originates from the moment of hearing a command to the moment of carrying it out, centered on the significance of verbal endings. We hope that one of Elliot’s collaborators in his recent work can see this through to publication.

Rather than a career in academe, Elliot worked for most of those years at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in Philadelphia, where he excelled. This was in many ways a perfect job for him because of his propensity to master complexity and his fastidiousness in understanding esoteric detail. More than once my accountants in Iowa or New Mexico made costly errors in my tax filings. I was promptly on the phone with Elliot, who, with his usual kindness and good humor, advised me well. I will always remember my time with Elliot, including in classes at Penn with three very different and awesome vidvāṃsaḥ: Ludo Rocher, George Cardona, and Wilhelm Halbfass, and the camaraderie of the Penn Sanskrit students of that generation. As fine a Sanskritist as Elliot was, he was an equally fine and honorable human being. We are fortunate to have so many of them in our modest profession.

Get Outlook for Mac<https://aka.ms/GetOutlookForMac>
From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> on behalf of Nemec, John William (jwn3y) via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
Date: Sunday, August 2, 2026 at 6:36 AM
To: Indology List <indology at list.indology.info>; Elisa Freschi <elisa.freschi at utoronto.ca>
Subject: [External] Re: [INDOLOGY] sad news

Dear Elisa,

Thank you for sharing this news.  I cannot believe that Elliot is gone.  He seemed well to me, and so vital, thoughtful, and deliberate in all of our meetings together, reading and discussing Mīmāṃsā works.  (I feel we were about to ask him about an emendation, just this past week).

I always felt you, Elisa, had done so much to bring Elliot into the conversation, in Toronto and online.  His two volumes on Maṇḍana Miśra are landmarks and so extensive in their sheer work as well as erudition.  I am truly saddened by his passing; may he rest in peace, and may his family find peace.

As Ever,
John

___________________________________________
John Nemec, Ph.D.
Professor of Indian Religions and South Asian Studies
Department of Religious Studies
323 Gibson Hall, 1540 Jefferson Park Avenue
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22904
+1 (434) 924-6716
nemec at virginia.edu
https://virginia.academia.edu/JNemec

Take a look at my new book:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/brahmins-and-kings-9780197791998?cc=us&lang=en&
________________________________
From: 'Nemec, John William (jwn3y)' via Board of Directors <Board at rocherfoundation.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 2, 2026 8:29 AM
To: Richard Lariviere <rwl at rocherfoundation.org>; Patrick Olivelle <jpo at rocherfoundation.org>
Cc: of Directors Board <Board at rocherfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] sad news

So terrible.  Elliot was such a great scholar.

___________________________________________
John Nemec, Ph.D.
Professor of Indian Religions and South Asian Studies
Department of Religious Studies
323 Gibson Hall, 1540 Jefferson Park Avenue
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA 22904
+1 (434) 924-6716
nemec at virginia.edu
https://virginia.academia.edu/JNemec

Take a look at my new book:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/brahmins-and-kings-9780197791998?cc=us&lang=en&
________________________________
From: Richard Lariviere <rwl at rocherfoundation.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 1, 2026 3:58 PM
To: Patrick Olivelle <jpo at rocherfoundation.org>
Cc: of Directors Board <Board at rocherfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] sad news

I'm sorry to hear this. Elliot was part of our West Philly scene in the previous century.

Richard W. Lariviere, PhD
President
The Ludo and Rosane Rocher Foundation<http://rocherfoundation.org/>
[https://ci3.googleusercontent.com/mail-sig/AIorK4zt5y9qS4Wu4M9dakQ6vk1KhXeebHKJbPFR_Z4EAvAeYyT8qkS2lUtRzyrPHmu-wtaPhukH2OY]

On Sat, Aug 1, 2026 at 2:02 PM Patrick Olivelle <jpo at rocherfoundation.org<mailto:jpo at rocherfoundation.org>> wrote:
This news came as a shock. Elliot and I were grad students together in 1972-74—remember him always coming a few minutes late with a cup of coffee in hand!! As you know, we are publishing Freschi and Eliott’s edition of Maṇḍana Miśra.

Patrick

Begin forwarded message:

From: Elisa Freschi via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>>
Subject: [INDOLOGY] sad news
Date: August 1, 2026 at 12:52:10 PM CDT
To: Indology <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>>
Reply-To: elisa.freschi at gmail.com<mailto:elisa.freschi at gmail.com>

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)
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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<http://elisafreschi.com/>
Bluesky: @elisafreschi.bsky.social
Philpapers: https://philpeople.org/profiles/elisa-freschi

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