Ramakrishna Puligandla

1930 - 2022

News story
By Mark Zaborney
Blade Staff Writer

Ramakrishna Puligandla, a professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Toledo who taught courses in logic, the philosophy of science, and comparative philosophy and religion - particularly traditions of India, died June 23 under hospice care at the Glendale assisted living community. He was 91.

He had been in declining health after an infection, his son Bert Puligandla said.

Mr. Puligandla, of South Toledo, retired in 1993 from UT after 27 years, but continued to teach for several years. He also continued to lecture at conferences and universities internationally.

"He loved students and loved to teach," said the younger Mr. Puligandla, who took his father's course in logic. "He would invite questions. Sometimes he would just pick a person. He didn't care if they raised their hand or not. His interaction with the students was unique in many ways."

It wasn't unusual for Mr. Puligandla's oldest, son Balaram, to arrive home from school to find his father in a chair and a dozen undergraduate and graduate students gathered at the professor's feet.

"He was able to engage with these philosophical concepts about existence and the meaning of life, all the philosophical ideas great thinkers have written and talked about," son Balaram said. "The ability to have these in-depth and high-level conversations with students and the classroom and at our home, that's what really drove him."

To coincide with the 2013 publication of his book, Aspects of Hinduism: Origins, Development, and Comparison With the Abrahamic Traditions, Mr. Puligandla gave lectures at UT and at a West Toledo church to discuss the influence and relation Hinduism has with Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

He wrote dozens of articles and 10 books, and his scholarship inspired the 2005 volume, Breaking Barriers: Essays in Asian and Comparative Philosophy in Honor of Ramakrishna Puligandla. He also was an editor and reviewer for professional journals.

His 1975 book, Fundamentals of Indian Philosophy, received wide attention. Quoted then in a UT news release, Mr. Puligandla said the book's purpose was to introduce students to major non-Western – particularly Indian – philosophical systems to widen their academic backgrounds, but also to enrich their view of other people and cultures.

Some students had been able to go through college with the impression that philosophy meant Western philosophy, because that was the focus of some universities' philosophy programs, the professor said then. That view was reinforced by books on the history of Western philosophy entitled History of Philosophy – the exception being Bertrand Russell's "History of Western Philosophy."

Enrollment in the course he'd taught in Eastern thought steadily increased.

"Unless and until members of each culture approach the philosophies of others with an open mind and study them seriously," he said in 1975, "there will be neither the understanding of other peoples nor the enlightenment and enrichment of one's own philosophy that can only result from such understanding."

He received a Fulbright scholar grant in 1992 and spent four months at the Radhakrisnan Institute for Advanced Study in Philosophy at the University of Madras in India. He taught and participated in a distinguished lecture series there and presented papers and conducted workshops at other universities in India.

He was born Sept. 8, 1930, in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, India, to Seethamma and Venkataraman Puligandla. He was about 3 years old when his mother died, and he often spoke of the influence of his stepmother, Ratnamma Puligandla, in his upbringing.

After recovering from typhoid at age 8, he received home schooling from a neighbor, during which he was exposed to wide range of subjects, from science and mathematics to music, literature, and Hindu religion and philosophy. A high school graduate at age 15, he received a bachelor's degree in physics in 1949 and a master's degree in applied physics in 1951, both in India.

He came to the United States in 1958, his wife and children rejoining him three years later. He received a master of science degree from Purdue University after studies in physics and electrical engineering.

After a week of work at General Electric, "he felt he was not a 9-to-5 guy," son Balaram said. Mr. Puligandla decided to enter academia.

"What he really loved at the time, in contrast to the culture in India, was the openness and the freedom to do what you want" in the United States, his oldest son said. "I admired his sense of adventure and his fearlessness. There's no way I could have, as a 26-year-old, decided to leave my family. He felt his future would be much more achievable here."

He received a master of arts degree in philosophy in 1962 from the University of South Dakota and a doctorate in philosophy from Rice University in 1966. He was teaching at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., when UT hired him in 1966 as an associate professor.

He played tennis into his mid-80s and appreciated jazz and Indian classical music, from Miles Davis and Duke Ellington to the fusion of jazz and Indian music of guitarist John McLaughlin.

His wife of 55 years, the former Janaki Vatthyam, died in 2004.

Surviving are his sons, Balaram Puligandla, Vijay K. Puligandla, and Bertrand Russell Puligandla; daughters, Sita Wiczynski and Usha Bharatula; brothers, Viswanadham, Subramanyam, Laxminarasaiah, Vasudevan, Chidambaram, Shankar, and Rajagopal; sisters, Janaki and Vijayalaxmi; eight grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.

A prayer ritual to celebrate his life will begin at 5 p.m. Wednesday in the Hindu Temple of Toledo in Sylvania Township, where he was a member.

The family suggests tributes to UT.