The Religious Studies Department mourns the passing of Professor Emeritus K.L. Seshagiri Rao, who was born in India 14 October 1929, and died 14 January 2024. He received his master’s degree with distinction in Philosophy at the University of Mysore in India, then came to the United States in 1962 on a Fulbright Fellowship; he earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Study of World Religions from Harvard University in 1966. Following a few visiting faculty appointments in the U.S., including one year at the University of Virginia, he founded the Department of Religious Studies in Punjabi University in India. He returned in 1971 to UVA, where he taught courses in Hinduism, comparative religion, and Gandhian studies until his retirement as Professor Emeritus in 1994. The author of several books and numerous articles and book chapters, he also edited several works, including, as editor-in-chief, the eleven-volume Encyclopedia of Hinduism, published in 2010. He is survived by his wife Saraswati, four sons and their wives, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.