Dear list members, it is a sad week for Dutch indology. On the 28th of August Teun Goudrian (Māyā Divine and Human, Vināśikhatantra) has died at the age of 77, and on the 30th Max Sparreboom (Chariots in the Veda, The Ritual setting up of the Sacrificial Fires According to the Vādhūla School) at the age of 65. Max and I started our studies together in 1970 with Henk Bodewitz and Jan Heesterman. After temporary jobs at the Kern Institute Max worked for NWO, a Dutch funding organisation, was Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the Erasmus Universiteit (Rotterdam), was Director of the IIAS in Leiden and Director of the Premium Erasmianum. Soon after his retirement in August last year he was diagnosed long cancer (he had stopped smoking some 40 years ago). In addition to his indological work Max published widely on salamanders. Recently a voluminous standard work on salamanders by him has appeared. His work on a book on salamaders in art was interrupted by his death.