That is the kind of news which one wishes is just not true.

I owe Ashok a great deal, in more than one way. I would like to put on record that, for instance, while I was living in India during the first days of public access to the internet, he was the first person who wrote me an email. My first email message from anyone. He also urged me to join internet fora and explained what the Indology List is. This turned out to be a blessing.

He was a caring father and a gracious host, but in our online circle he will of course be remembered foremost as an amazing and productive scholar in more than one branch of our studies. Perhaps the climax of his career was the World Sanskrit Conference in Vancouver, 2018, which tacitly everybody understood to be his big party.

His fight to protect classical Indian studies at his university in Vancouver was not always so easy, but he was determined to let the academic study of Indian culture in his adopted Canada grow and prosper. When he sat beside me as we were awarded the honorary title of vidyāsāgara at the World Sanskrit Conference in Bangalore, 1997, he was a bit disappointed that I was announced as a scholar from the Netherlands (he turned to me and asked sadly "Canada?…", perhaps because the USA had one title awardee more than Canada did. I, the bi-national, said we should perhaps be generously Canadian and let Europe have one too, out of respect to my teachers. He thought that was a good argument).

I am sure that we have many anecdotes about Ashok: about his learning, his love for Sanskrit, his kind helpfulness. I hope that those stories will be told to others, so that he will continue to be an inspiring person, even in his sad absence.

गतायुपण्डितमित्रस्य सद्गतिर्भवतु।

Robert Zydenbos

Pada 2026-10-28 03:27, Madhav Deshpande via INDOLOGY menulis:

I just now read a message from Shrikant Bahulkar that Ashok Aklujkar passed away today. I knew from Vidyut Aklujkar that Ashok had a hip replacement surgery and he was in hospital taking somewhat longer time to recover. But I did not expect to hear this sad news. I also received a message from Vidyut just a minute ago. I knew Ashok from my highschool days in Pune. He was four-five years ahead of me. Later we became very close friends for a lifetime. A very big loss to the field of Sanskrit studies. May he rest in peace.

 

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]