The untimely passing of historian Ranjeeta Dutta on October 25 is a deeply painful loss to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and to the wider community of historians. It is difficult to accept that someone with so much intellectual energy, such a gentle presence, and so much more to contribute to the study of India’s past is no longer with us. For those who knew her, the loss is deeply personal. We have lost not only an accomplished historian but also a warm, unassuming and generous human being whose scholarship commanded respect without ever making her distant from others.Ranjeeta was an erudite scholar, but she never wore her learning as a badge of distinction. What I find particularly memorable about her was the ease and humility with which she carried herself. She was gentle, approachable and genuinely down-to-earth. There was no unnecessary display of academic authority in her manner. Her scholarship was serious, her intellectual engagement was deep, and yet she remained unpretentious in her dealings with colleagues and fellow scholars. In academic life, where intellectual achievements can sometimes create distance between people, such qualities are precious. Ranjeeta possessed them naturally. Her passing makes us reflect not only on the work she has left behind but also on the kind of person she was.Her contribution to the history of southern part of India deserves particular recognition. Through her careful engagement with religious traditions, historical texts, temple institutions and regional societies, she demonstrated how seemingly familiar sources could open up new ways of understanding the past. She moved comfortably across different kinds of evidence and historical questions, bringing together religious, social, cultural and intellectual history. Her work was marked by a willingness to take historical sources seriously without uncritically accepting their claims. This combination of intellectual curiosity and methodological care made her scholarship valuable to historians working beyond the immediate subjects of her research.Her book, From Hagiographies to Biographies: Ramanuja in Tradition and History (Oxford University Press, 2014), is an important example of this approach. In examining the changing representations of Ramanuja within the Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition, Ranjeeta explored how religious communities remembered their past and gave new meanings to historical figures. She did not simply dismiss hagiographies because they contained devotional elements, nor did she read them as straightforward accounts of historical events. Instead, she asked what these narratives could tell us about the communities that produced, preserved and reinterpreted them. By bringing hagiographies into conversation with devotional praise-poems, inscriptions and modern biographies, she examined the complex relationship between historical experience, religious tradition and collective memory.Also read: Historian Ranjeeta Dutta Dies at 56, Leaving Behind a Rich, Illuminating ScholarshipOne of the most significant aspects of this work is its treatment of Ramanuja’s changing image as a social reformer. The ways in which later generations represented his relationship with social hierarchy reveal as much about their own historical circumstances as they do about the figure they sought to remember. Ranjeeta’s work reminds us that the past does not reach us untouched. It is remembered, debated and reinterpreted by successive generations, each bringing its own questions and concerns to inherited traditions. For historians, this is an important lesson: we must investigate not only what historical figures did but also how their lives and actions came to mean different things over time.Her research on Srirangam, temple towns, pilgrimage, urban landscapes, regional identities and the Vijayanagara Empire further demonstrates the breadth of her historical imagination. In her engagement with the Koil Olugu, the chronicle associated with the Ranganathasvami temple at Srirangam, she drew attention to the multiple layers through which the history of a sacred place was recorded and remembered. Srirangam was not merely a pilgrimage centre. It was also a settlement shaped by social relationships, political authority, economic activity and changing patterns of urban life. Her work encouraged us to look beyond familiar descriptions of religious places and to recover the complex histories that made them what they were.This is where I believe Ranjeeta’s scholarship has a wider significance. She did not isolate religion from the social world in which it operated. Her research showed how religious institutions and traditions were connected to caste, community, political power, regional identity and everyday life. Nor did she treat historical memory as a secondary concern. She understood that the ways in which communities remember their past are themselves worthy of historical investigation. These are not simply questions about medieval or early modern South India. They remain central to our understanding of Indian society and its historical development.For students and younger historians, her work offers an equally important lesson. Sources are rarely as simple as they first appear. A devotional text can reveal social tensions and community aspirations. A temple chronicle can tell us about political relationships and urban change. The changing memory of a religious figure can illuminate the concerns of generations separated by centuries. Such insights emerge only when historians are willing to read carefully, question familiar assumptions and remain attentive to contradictions and silences in the evidence. I think Ranjeeta’s scholarship exemplified the value of this patient and thoughtful engagement with the past.However, an obituary cannot adequately remember a scholar through her publications alone. Of course, books and articles remain available for others to read, discuss and challenge. What cannot be recovered so easily are the conversations that might have taken place, the questions that might have been pursued together, and the intellectual companionship that develops through the ordinary exchanges of academic life. I think the loss of a colleague is felt in these absences as much as in the loss of future publications. I strongly believe that for students, it is the loss of a teacher and guide. For fellow historians, it is the loss of a colleague whose work offered new perspectives and whose presence enriched the academic community.For me, what makes Ranjeeta’s passing particularly painful is the sense of unfinished work and unrealised possibilities. Her scholarship had already made a meaningful contribution to our understanding of religious traditions, historical memory and the social worlds of south of India. There remained so much more that she could have explored, written and shared. I used to have a long chat in my room about her ongoing research on Sri Vanamamalai Perumal Tample in Nanguneri, and Vaishnava Nambi Temple at Thirukkurungudi (in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu). Hence, remembering Ranjeeta must mean more than merely praising her academic achievements after her untimely demise. For me, it means returning to her writings, engaging seriously with her arguments and allowing her questions to shape future historical research. It also means remembering the person behind the profound scholarship: an erudite historian who remained humble, a distinguished academic who was never pretentious, and a gentle soul whose warmth made an impression beyond the pages of her books.I think Ranjeeta helped us understand how communities make sense of their past, how traditions change while claiming continuity, and how historical figures acquire new meanings across generations. These questions, I am sure, would continue to matter to historians and students for years to come. I have an unshakable conviction that the best tribute we, as her colleagues and students, can offer Ranjeeta is to keep her scholarship alive in our classrooms, our research and our conversations. I also feel that we owe her something more: to remember the gentle, humble and unassuming person she was, and the warmth she brought to those around her. The questions she raised, the histories she explored and the memories she leaves behind, I am sure, would continue to speak to us.M. Christhu Doss is associate professor, department of history at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.