Joseph Prabhu, a valued member of the SACP and President of the SACP from 2008-2009, passed away recently. We at the SACP join with others in celebrating his life and grieving his loss. Below is a memorial notice written by Purushottama Bilimoria. 

 

Joseph Prabhu PhD, breathed his last on Monday 27th (September) evening in Los Angeles after suffering, for over five years now, from a physical illness or two. Joseph hailed from an Indo-Syriac Catholic family in Mangalore and Bangalore (in Karnataka, India). He was a polymath; in his professional-vocational life known as a prominent philosopher of religion in the cross-cultural mode, with a sound scholarly handle on the works of Rishi Raimon Panikkar (his key mentor and influence, who developed Cosmotheandric theo-sophy and brought new insights to Vedic studies), G W F Hegel (and German idealism), Jüngen Habermas (with whom he studied in Germany after studying with Laureate Amartya Sen in Delhi), Gandhi (especially Gandhian economics and political thought), Indian Ethics, Hindu-Christian Studies, with interests ranging to ecological studies, postcolonial studies, and cosmology. Joseph was a stalwart of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy, East-West Philosophers Conference (every 4 years in Honolulu); i was his simulation (simulacrum) and we often were taken for being brothers,, if not mistaken for each other, or apparitionally as buddhivan incarnatio.

 

He also attended the Australasian SACP conference in Melbourne, 2004. The dog in Venus Bay kutir, Devi, fell in love with Joseph and would keep his company the entire 4 days Joseph stayed working with me on the two volumes of Indian Ethics and our respective commentaries on Indian philosophy in the thinking of Hegel, Raimon Pannikar, J N Mohanty, Ninian Smart and Wilhelm Halbfass.

 

Most recently Joseph was involved in Interreligious Dialogue, Sustainability, and Global-Critical Philosophy of Religion. In India, Joseph had a visible presence in a number of areas, from his own connections with the Syriac Catholic church, Dom Bede Griffiths, through to Templeton Foundation project on Science and Spirituality Research in India (started in Bangalore). When the late Prof Raja Ramana was scheming a national Institute of Advanced Studies in the backyards, as it were, of the IISc/Tata Institute/C V Raman Research Institute in Bangalore, he called on Pandit K T Pandurangi, who in turn called me in (being my Mīmāṃsā mentor), and I called in Mahodaya Prabhuji. Our joint message at the meeting in IISc to Raja Ramana ji was to ensure that the Humanities and Social Sciences, especially Philosophy, and if possible Comparative Religion (one of its kind in India), are given central focus at the Institute. Ramana ji took our suggestion seriously, and at least Social Sciences and Philosophy are to this day strongly represented in NIAS, at Mathikere, Bangalore (alas, not noted in the plaque of inauguration; although one of us did have the honor of being the Homi J. Bhabha Visiting Professor for a short while). There is more, but I am too overcome to complete this obituary (which I shall do in due course for Sophia). Adieu Brother Mahottama Joseph; Om-Amen.

 

Bryan William VAN NORDEN (he, him, his)
James Monroe Taylor Chair in Philosophy, Vassar College (USA)
Chair Professor in the School of Philosophy, Wuhan University (China)

bryanvannorden.com

万百安, 博士
瓦萨学院（美国），讲座教授
武汉大学（中国），讲座教授