[INDOLOGY] Professor Ramanath Sharma 1939–2026

[Madhav Deshpande]

Ramanath Sharma was a great scholar and a close friend. It is sad to hear
his demise, but he will be fondly remembered by his students and
colleagues. 🙏

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 Fri, Oct 16, 2026 at 11:23 AM Robert P. GOLDMAN via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Dear Colleagues,
>
> I am very sorry to have to report to you the passing this morning of
> Professor Ramanath Sharma, generally known to his friends and colleagues as
> simply Rama, surrounded by his family in Atlanta Georgia after a long
>  illness.  Rama was born in Chhata in Ballia District in 1939 as the eldest
> son of Pandit Raghunath Sharma, the author of the commentary *Ambākartrī*
>  on Bhartṛhari’s *Vākyapadīya*.
>
> Rama did his M.A in Hindi Literature at Allahabad in 1959 and another in
> Linguistics at Agra in 1962.  He received his Ph.D. in Linguistics at the
> University of Rochester in 1971 where taught Hindi language and Literature
> until 1975.  We served together there when I was professor of Sanskrit  and
> we became close friends and colleagues. He then became Professor of Hindi
> and, later on, of Sanskrit at the University at Hawaii at Manoa where he
> chaired the Department of Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures.
>
> Rama’s passion was *vyākaraṇa* and he will be best remembered for his
> monumental  six volume  translation and annotation of the *Aṣṭādhyāyī*
> which was published by Munshiram Manoharlal  Privvate Ltd. between 1987 and
> 2003.
>
> Rama is survived by his daughters Manimala and Neelam, both of Atlanta,
> and his son Alok of San Francisco and will be fondly remembered by his
> colleagues and generations of students.
>
> *na khalu sa uparato yasya vallabho janaḥ smarati *|
>
> Dr. R.P. Goldman
> William and Catherine Magistretti Distinguished Professor of Sanskrit
> Emeritus
> and
> Professor in the Graduate School
> Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies
> The University of California at Berkeley
>
>
>
>
>
>
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