Nalanda University honours Arvind Sharma, scholar who took Hindu thought global
Representative image: Sweetaholic / Pixabay
On 17 October 2026 Nalanda University held a condolence meeting for Arvind Sharma, the McGill scholar of Hindu thought and comparative religion who died on 29 September.
What Happened
Nalanda University paid tribute to Professor Arvind Sharma, the McGill University scholar of comparative religion and Hindu thought, at an online condolence meeting on Saturday, 17 October 2026. Sharma, who had served Nalanda as a Distinguished Visiting Professor and sat on its governing board, died on 29 September 2026, according to McGill's School of Religious Studies. The university's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sachin Chaturvedi, opened the tributes and spoke about Sharma's ideas on dharma and peaceful coexistence, and academics from India and abroad joined the meeting to recall his work.
Key Facts
- Nalanda University held a virtual condolence meeting for Professor Arvind Sharma on Saturday, 17 October 2026.
- Vice-Chancellor Professor Sachin Chaturvedi led the tributes, highlighting Sharma's thinking on dharma and coexistence.
- Sharma was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Nalanda University from August to December 2018 and a member of its governing board.
- McGill University says he died on 29 September 2026; he had held its Birks Chair of Comparative Religion since 1994.
- Born in Varanasi in 1940, he joined McGill in 1987 after teaching posts in Australia.
- He received the Padma Shri in Literature and Education in 2025.
- His work helped bring about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the World's Religions, through global conferences held in 2006, 2011 and 2016.
Why It Matters
Sharma was one of the best-known figures to carry Indian philosophy into the mainstream of world religious studies. For close to four decades at McGill in Montreal, he taught and wrote on Advaita Vedanta, classical and modern Hindu thought, comparative religion, women in religious traditions, and the relationship between the world's religions and human rights. McGill says he kept teaching until the semester before his death.
His Padma Shri citation, posted by the President's office when President Droupadi Murmu presented the award, singled out a book on the philosophy of religion as found in Advaita Vedanta, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and primal religions. The citation said this work gave a non-Western perspective to a field long framed almost entirely through Western thought. It also noted that several volumes he edited on women in the world's religions had been significant in promoting women's studies.
That is the heart of why his passing matters for readers interested in India's knowledge traditions. Today's push to formalise Indian Knowledge Systems in universities depends on the idea that ideas from the Upanishads, Vedanta or Buddhist and Jain philosophy belong in serious academic debate, not only in temples or textbooks of the past. Sharma spent his career making that case in the classrooms and journals of a leading Western university.
His work also went beyond the lecture hall. The conferences on the world's religions that he helped organise in 2006, 2011 and 2016 led to the adoption of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the World's Religions, an attempt to show that religious traditions could speak the language of rights in their own terms.
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1940 | Born in Varanasi |
| 1987 | Joins McGill University after posts in Australia |
| 1994 | Becomes Birks Professor of Comparative Religion at McGill |
| 2018 | Distinguished Visiting Professor at Nalanda University (August to December) |
| 2025 | Receives the Padma Shri in Literature and Education |
Impact
Short-term: The Nalanda meeting adds to the tributes that followed McGill's announcement of his death. Students and researchers are likely to return to his books on Hindu thought and comparative religion, and universities building Indian Knowledge Systems courses may draw on his writing as a bridge between Indian and Western philosophy.
Long-term: Sharma's legacy lies in showing that Indian philosophical traditions can be taught as living ideas in global universities. As Indian institutions such as Nalanda try to rebuild the country's place as a centre of learning, his example of rigorous, respectful comparison between traditions offers a model for how that work can be done.
Who is affected: Students and scholars of religion, philosophy and Indian Knowledge Systems in India and abroad, Nalanda University's academic community, McGill's School of Religious Studies, and readers interested in how Hindu, Buddhist and Jain ideas are presented to the world.
Key Takeaway
Nalanda University's tribute marks the loss of Arvind Sharma, a Varanasi-born scholar who spent nearly four decades placing Indian philosophy at the centre of world religious studies.
Questions and Answers
Who was Professor Arvind Sharma?
Arvind Sharma was the Birks Professor of Comparative Religion at McGill University in Montreal, a chair he held from 1994. Born in Varanasi in 1940, he wrote on Advaita Vedanta, Hindu thought, comparative religion, women in religion and human rights, and received the Padma Shri in 2025. McGill says he died on 29 September 2026.
What did Nalanda University do to honour him?
Nalanda University held an online condolence meeting on 17 October 2026. Vice-Chancellor Professor Sachin Chaturvedi opened the tributes, speaking about Sharma's ideas on dharma and coexistence, and academics from India and other countries took part.
What was Arvind Sharma's link with Nalanda University?
He served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Nalanda University from August to December 2018 and was a member of the university's governing board.
Why is his work important for Indian Knowledge Systems?
His books placed Indian philosophical traditions such as Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism and Jainism alongside Western thought in the study of religion. His Padma Shri citation said this gave a non-Western perspective to the philosophy of religion, which is the kind of academic grounding Indian Knowledge Systems programmes now seek.
Disclaimer: Prepared by the Peepals newsroom from publicly available sources with AI assistance. Information is accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication and may change. Images may be representative. Not professional advice. Report an error via our contact page.
Sourced and fact-checked by the Peepals Global Editorial Team
Reported, fact-checked and published by the Peepals Global Editorial Team.
