OBITUARY> Professor Ram Shankar Tripathi (15th October 1929 - 18th of February 2019)
Prof. Ram Shankar Tripathi was born in Sodalpur village of Harda district in Madhya Pradesh, not far from Sanchi. After completing his secondary education in Sanskrit in Itarsi, Madhya Pradesh, he came to Sampūrṇānanda Sanskrit University (Varanasi) for higher education, focusing on Sanskrit Grammar and Āyurveda. While studying there he came in contact with Prof. Jagannath Upadhyay and elicited a keen interest in Buddhist philosophy. To further his knowledge of Buddhism, he studied extensively with Prof. Jagannath Upadhyaya, and with scholars of traditional schools of Buddhism and Vedānta, including scholar-monks from Myanmar and Tibet. Later, he visited Nalanda, Bihar, for two years to study Pali language and literature from Prof. Jagdish Kashyap. At a more personal level of Buddhist practice, he most notably received Guhyasamāja initiation and other transmissions from his main Guru, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.
Prof. Tripathi’s published output in both Hindi and Sanskrit is vast, and covers many aspects of Buddhism, from Theravada Abhidhamma, to Sautrāntika, Yogācāra and Madhyamaka philosophy, and Tantra. His students, all over the world, are too many to count; he taught very generously both in his official capacities (Sampūrṇānanda Sanskrit University, Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies) and privately.
Prof. Tripathi was awarded the honorary title of Padmaśrī by the Government of India; he is well-known and respected in the Tibetan tradition as the modern-day heir of the Nālanda tradition. Until recently, Prof. Tripathi was working on a further installment of his commentary on Ācārya Dharmakīrti’s Pramāṇavārttika.
He never said no to any serious learner of Buddhism; nor did he ever let his students feel that he is facing any kind of difficulty while teaching. Thus, he kept up with his mission of reviving Sanskrit Buddhism in India, till his last breath.
Prof. Tripathi leaves all his students deeply indebted, having offered them a clear example of what the best Indian tradition of Buddhist Paṇḍitas and Ācāryas means.
Deepamkar Tripathi and Mattia Salvini
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Post ReplyLike so many others, I was saddened to hear of the recent passing of Professor Ram Shankar Tripathi. I had the distinct pleasure of studying under his direction for roughly two years in the mid 1970’s. At the time we first met I was 27 years old, Professor Tripathi would have been 48. He was then living in the faculty housing at Sanskrit University and we used to meet there in his front room. I’m sure there are many H-Net subscribers who worked with him and have their own fond memories; what follows are a few of mine I would like to share.
In 1977 I was living in Varanasi, near Assi Ghat, studying with Ambika Datta Upadhyaya, who himself taught quite a few Sanskritists of my generation. We were reading the Laghusiddhāntakaumudī. But I was interested in Buddhism, and at that time Jagannath Upadhyaya was well known as an authority on the literature of Buddhist Tantra. He was teaching at Sanskrit University, so I bicycled across town to meet him. When I told him I had a special interest in the Mahāyāna śāstras he referred me to Professor Tripathi. With Upadhyaya’s reference letter in hand, I peddled over to his home. He listened as I described my interests and training, and graciously agreed to tutor me. But when I offered to pay him for his time, he shook his head. “In my father’s day,” he said, “and his father’s before him, the chela would live with his guru and serve him, in return for receiving guidance. This is no longer possible. Nowadays I am compelled to teach at an institution and be paid in rupees, in order to support my family. The old ways are gone forever. I accept this. But I will not take money here, in my home. My home is not a shop.”
My second memory is of an event that occurred only a month or so after Professor Tripathi and I began working together. I don’t recall ever hearing him speak English; at any rate, we always communicated in Hindi. My Hindi was adequate to the task, and if he found my accent amusing, he never let on. He was always friendly with me, but at the same time I had profound respect for his learning and I was acutely conscious of my limitations with both Hindi and Sanskrit, always anxious to prove to him that I appreciated the nuances of our conversation. When this particular incident transpired we happened to be reading the ninth chapter of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, along with Prajñākaramiti’s Panjikā. I had just proposed my own interpretation of an especially abstruse passage in the commentary; Professor Tripathi had not yet responded. After sufficient pause I inquired, rather timidly, if he had any concerns about my proposal, using the Hindi word nirodh for “objection” or “resistance”. From the expression on his face I immediately realized I had somehow committed a terrible faux pas, though I didn’t have the slightest clue what it was. He stared at me as if the gestalt of our relationship had suddenly shifted, as if he were re-visiting his estimation of my intelligence, or even – as it felt to me in that moment – my character. At last he spoke, with great solemnity, pronouncing the Hindi words slowly and with unmistakable clarity: “I believe you mean to say, do I have any virodh.” I nodded vigorously in the affirmative, and we continued with our lesson. As soon as I got back to my room I pulled my Hindi-English dictionary off the shelf, looked up nirodh and discovered, to my horror, that I had asked this eminently respectable Brahmin scholar if he had any condoms. Both words are etymologically related to the Sanskrit root rudh, which means (in its transitive form) to block or stop. I had confused the prefix, with disastrous results. For the next several weeks Professor Tripathi made a practice of pointedly asking me, now and again, with just the hint of a sly smile, if indeed I understood whatever it was he had just said.
This last incident, that I’m about to narrate, made a great impression on me. During our lessons conversation often wandered, sometimes into subjects tangential to the text we were studying. One afternoon we were discussing Advaita Vedanta, and Professor Tripathi drifted into talking about how he reconciled his life as a Hindu with his deep interest in Buddhism. “You can see that I wear this janeu.” He gestured toward the sacred thread that looped over one shoulder and around his chest. “I am a Brahmin, after all, so of course I wear this. And I go to temple for puja. That is all as it must be. It would be difficult…” he hesitated, “for my family, you know? Very difficult if I did not do these things. But if you were to ask me what is the most profound philosophy India has ever produced, then with no hesitation I would tell you: that is Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka.”
Sanskrit was, effectively, Professor Tripathi’s native language; his intellectual and spiritual home was Buddhism. Centuries ago such men were relatively common in India, but in our time he was a rare treasure. Those of us who were fortunate enough to study with him had access not just to an remarkably learned scholar/philosopher, but to a whole world that now feels as if has been lost all over again.
C.W. Huntington, Jr.