I have just been informed of the very sad new of the passing of Dr. Ramkaran Sharma in New Delhi. Sharmaji had been ailing for some time and had recently been hospitalized for pneumonia.

Sharma was one of the great stalwarts of Sanskrit Studies both as a scholar and an administrator.  He was, among many things,  the Vice Chancellor of Darbhanga University, the Founding Director of the Rāṣṭrīya Saṃskṛta  Saṃsthāna and the President of the International Association of Sanskrit Studies. He taught widely in India and the West, including at  Berkeley, Columbia University  and the University of Pennsylvania

He took his doctorate under the guidance of the late Professor Murray Barnson Emeneau at my home institution, the University of California at Berkeley and was an inspiration and mentor to me and several generations of Sanskrit scholars from around the world.  He was always available to advise and help with knotty problems in a vast variety of Sanskrit texts and his knowledge of vyākaraṇa and all manner of śāstraic fields was immense and his sharing of it magnanimous.  He was  my  teacher, colleague an friend for some fifty years  and was   always ready to advise us on difficult passages in the Rāmāyaṇa commentaries.

He  and his vast learning will be deeply missed by scholars around the world.