Shivram Dattatray Joshi (1926–2013) also known as S. D. Joshi, was an Indian Sanskrit scholar and grammarian based in Pune,

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

Life

Personal life

Joshi was born in a family of Sanskrit scholars in

Ratnagiri Ratnagiri (IAST:Ratnāgirī ; �ət̪n̪aːɡiɾiː is a port city on the Arabian Sea coast in Ratnagiri District in the southwestern part of Maharashtra, India. The district is a part of Konkan division of Maharashtra. The city is known for ...

in Konkan, Maharashtra. His father died when Joshi was a child. He married Kalavati Bhagavat, his college classmate, in 1958. Joshi had two children, a son named Anandavardhan (Nandan) and a daughter named Suvrata. Joshi died on 29 July 2013 at the age of 87.

Education and career

Joshi's initial learning was from his uncle Maheshwar Shastri Joshi in Pune. He mastered Sanskrit grammar before the age of twenty, passing various examinations from Bengal, Baroda and Pune. He began teaching at the Poona Sanskrit College and served as its principal from 1947 to 1955. Joshi was the teacher to Daniel Ingalls in 1950s. Ingalls was very impressed with Joshi and persuaded him to come to Harvard University. As Joshi had learned Sanskrit only in the traditional system, he had to first complete a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1955, after which he applied for a fellowship at Harvard University. Joshi completed his PhD from Harvard University in 1960 in the field of Sanskrit lexical semantics, with Ingalls as his advisor. Joshi returned to India in 1960 and joined the Department of Sanskrit Dictionary at the Deccan College, Pune. In 1964, he joined the Centre of Advanced Study in Sanskrit at the

University of Poona Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), formerly the University of Poona, is a collegiate public state university located in the city of Pune, India. It was established in 1949, and is spread over a campus in the neighbourhood of Ganeshk ...

as a Reader. In 1970, he was appointed the Head of Department of Sanskrit and Prakrit at the university. From 1974 to 1987 he was the Director of Centre of Advanced Study in Sanskrit. From 1987, he led the Deccan College Sanskrit Dictionary Project. Joshi was a visiting professor at Harvard University from 1971 to 1972, and at

Nagoya University , abbreviated to or NU, is a Japanese national research university located in Chikusa-ku, Nagoya. It was the seventh Imperial University in Japan, one of the first five Designated National University and selected as a Top Type university of T ...

from 1976 to 1977.

Major works

*Commentary on

Patanjali Patanjali ( sa, पतञ्जलि, Patañjali), also called Gonardiya or Gonikaputra, was a Hindu author, mystic and philosopher. Very little is known about him, and while no one knows exactly when he lived; from analysis of his works it i ...

’s Mahābhāṣya planned in 11 volumes, with J.A.F. Roodbergen, but which was abandoned after 2 volumes. *Commentary on Pāṇini’s grammar in 15 volumes, with J.A.F. Roodbergen.

Awards and recognition

Joshi was awarded the title of National Scholar (Rashtriya Pandit) by the President of India in 1991. Joshi is credited with attracting the attention of theoretical linguists to the Aṣṭādhyāyī. He is sometimes referred to as the new Pāṇini.

References

External links

*
Background of the Aṣṭādhyāyī
Keynote speech delivered at th

15–17 January 2009.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Joshi, Shivram Dattatray 1926 births 2013 deaths Writers from Pune Sanskrit grammarians Indian Sanskrit scholars Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni 20th-century Indian linguists Indian expatriates in the United States