Edwin Mahaffey Gerow passed away on July 24, 2025, in Portland, Oregon. In his lifetime he established himself as an outstanding scholar of Sanskrit and Indian poetics.
In 1949, Edwin gained admission to the University of Chicago, where he began serious study of French language and literature. He stayed on a further year studying Sanskrit before sailing to France where he spent two years at the Université de Paris studying French and Philosophy. He also studies Sanskrit at the University of Madras and later returned twice to India to study grammar, poetics, and Mīmāṁsā and Dvaita philosophy. In 1959 he returned to Paris and studied under the tutelage of the eminent Sanskrit scholar Louis Renou. Back in Chicago, Edwin completed his Ph.D., producing a dissertation that evolved into his masterpiece A Glossary of Indian Figures of Speech, 1971.
Edwin’s teaching career commenced as an Assistant Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Rochester, while also visiting as a lecturer at Columbia. In 1964 he joined the faculty of the University of Washington as Assistant Professor of Sanskrit and Indic Literature, promoted to Associate Professor in 1967. In 1973, Edwin he took up the Frank L. Sulzberger Professorship of Civilizations in the College at the University of Chicago and as Professor of Sanskrit. In 1985, he was offered a visiting position at Reed College, and was formally appointed Professor of Religion and Humanities at Reed in 1989, a position he held until he retired in 1997.
In over sixty years, Edwin published over 130 articles, chapters and reviews and co-edited a number of collective volumes. He co-edited [with Edward C. Dimock, Jr., and J.A.B. van Buitenen], The Literatures of India, an Introduction. (1974). Other major contributions were his Indian Poetics. [Vol. V, fasc. 3 of A History of Indian Literature, ed. Jan Gonda] (1977) and The jewel-necklace of argument : (the Vādaratnāvali of Viṣṇudāsācārya) (translation, 1990). Another masterful publication was Edwin’s editing and translation–in collaboration with H. V. Nagaraja Rao—of The Vṛttivārttika or commentary on the functions of words of Appaya Dīkṣita (2001.) Posthumously, Edwin’s French translation of Nāgeśa’s Paramalaghumañjuṣā, will appear as the next Bulletin d’Etudes indiennes (BEI 37). This marks the first complete translation of this important text on semantics and the philosophy of knowledge in any Western language.
Edwin’s breadth of learning and capacity for disciplined writing enabled him also to serve as Editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Oriental Society from 1988 to 2000. He served as President of the OAS in 2001-2. He was elected Honorary Member of the Société Asiatique (Paris) in 2007 and awarded Doctorat honoris causa, by the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Section V (“Religious Sciences”) in 2008.
Ewin’s meticulous approach to Sanskrit grammar, poetics and philology made him a highly effective teacher, willing to mentor his students. The horizons of his learning were extraordinarily broad—a range frequently observed in his elegant essays and reviews.