De: Winand Callewaert <winand.callewaert@kuleuven.be>Objet: RE: [INDOLOGY] Ludo RocherSadness is not the main feeling overwhelming me now, but rather happiness, and pride, for having known Ludo as the scholar and gentleman he was,an Indologist of the old school where knowledge of the language of texts was the most important.He cannot be imitated, but he remains for me too an exemplar.Em. Prof. Dr Winand M. CallewaertFaculty of ArtsBlijde Inkomststraat 21, 33183000 Leuven, Belgium
Ludo Rocher was born on April 25, 1926 in Hemiksem (Antwerp) Belgium, the son of Julianus Rocher and Anna Van den Bogaert - Rocher.
He attended the University of Ghent, where he received the degrees of M.A. in Classics with a minor in Sanskrit in 1948, Dr. Jur. in 1950, and Ph.D. in Indian Studies 1952 under his teacher, Adriaan Scharpé (http://dutchstudies-satsea.nl/auteur/94/AdriaanAlberikMaria-Scharp.html ). During this period he also studied at the University of Utrecht in 1948-49 where he read Vedic with Jan Gonda (http://dutchstudies-satsea.nl/auteur/116/Jan-Gonda.html ), and at the School of Oriental and African Studies of London University in 1952 where he studied Sanskrit with C.A. Rylands, Hindi with John Burton Page, and Hindu Law and the Indian Constitution with Alan Gledhill.
From 1952 to 1958, he was a Research Fellow of the Belgian National Science Foundation; during this period he privately studied technical Sanskrit literature (mīmāṃsā, nyāya and vyākaraṇa) with Barend Faddegon, em. prof. at the University of Amsterdam (http://dutchstudies-satsea.nl/auteur/56/Barend-Faddegon.html ), and he did research in Poona (from 1953 to 1955) where he studied with Pandit T. S. Srinivasa Sastri at the Deccan College. He got his Habilitation degree (agrégation) at the University of Ghent in 1956, on the basis of his critical edition with annotated translation of the Vyavahāracintāmaṇi by Vācaspati Miśra: A Digest on Hindu Legal Procedure, issued in the Gentse Orientalische Bijdragen series. He worked as agrégé at the University of Ghent in 1958-59.
In 1959 was appointed to the faculty of the Free University of Brussels as Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology, serving at the ranks of Assistant Professor (1959), Associate Professor (1962), and Professor (1964). His primary appointment, from 1959 to 1967, was to teach Greek, Latin, and Comparative Linguistics in the Flemish section of the then single ULB/VUB; in addition, he taught Sanskrit in the Institut de Philologie et d'Histoire orientales et slaves in the French section, and also other courses such as Indian art history and Indian political science.
He married Rosane Debels - Rocher on April 1, 1961. Born in a French-speaking family of Mouscron, she was at that time concluding a master's degree (licence) in Indo-Iranian studies (she was already licenciée in Classics, 1959) at the Free University of Brussels (where she started her doctoral researches later in the same year 1961, as Research Fellow of the FNRS).