[INDOLOGY] Professor Ramanath Sharma 1939–2026

[dipti tripathi]

It is very sad news indeed. The world of Sanskrit scholarship has lost a
stalwart such as who are becoming rare by the day. He belonged to the group
of those few who were the meeting  point of traditional Indian grammatical
system handed down through generations and modern interpretation of that
tradition.
On a personal note he considered me like his younger sister and both he and
his wife were very kind and affectionate towards me. I remember the time
when he went to Benaras with his wife and on his return gave me a lovely
Benarasi saree as a gift from the elder brother and his wife to his younger
sister. I still have it and will always cherish it. Memories come flooding
at this time and I will always remember him as a very affectionate person
and one with rare scholarship of Sanskrit grammatical tradition.
May he attain Moksha which is the ultimate goal of people like him in the
Indian tradition. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Om.

Dipti Sharma Tripathi
President,
International Association of Sanskrit Studies

On Sat, 17 Oct 2026 at 9:13 AM, Paul Thomas via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Sad news.  I never met him, but his edition, translation, and commentary
> on the Astadhyayi are great, and were very helpful to me.  Very complete
> and meticulous.
>
> Paul
>
> On Sat, Oct 17, 2026 at 2:13 AM Jesse Knutson via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>> I should add that he was very kind and generous to me while he was still
>> on the island. He invited me over for chai and his wife’s delicious
>> pakoras, and gave me a number of books. Sometimes he called on my office
>> phone out of the blue (which literally no one ever used) and would say
>> “how’s it going?."  He just wanted to know about my well-being in the most
>> general sense. He was very human. I have also gained so much from visiting
>> and revisiting his beautiful edition of the Aṣṭādhyāyī, which I continue to
>> revisit. So something of him certainly continues here. All those who worked
>> with him directly remember him very fondly, and they will be sad to hear
>> the news which I have already passed on.
>>
>> Jesse Knutson PhD
>> 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*
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 16, 2026 at 9:06 AM Jesse Knutson <jknutson at hawaii.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> This is sad news. Unfortunately no one had been in touch with him here
>>> for a number of years. I will let folks know.
>>>
>>> Jesse Knutson PhD
>>> 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*
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Oct 16, 2026 at 8:23 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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>>>>
>>>
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