The UCLA community lost a treasured scholar and friend with the passing of Diego Loukota at the age of thirty-eight in March 2024 after a yearlong battle with glioblastoma. He first came to UCLA in 2014 as a graduate student to study Indian Buddhism under Prof. Gregory Schopen and earned his PhD in 2019. He taught in Canada until his return to UCLA in 2021 as an assistant professor in Indian and Central Asian Buddhism.

Although Diego may have been a junior scholar, he was already a giant in the field, or perhaps many fields. He was a philologist who knew seven modern and eight ancient languages. He had a strong interest in languages, including Tongavar, spoken by the indigenous people on whose ancestral lands UCLA sits. He was also a gifted musician who had studied cello as an undergraduate, and he played with the UCLA Early Music Ensemble. Diego was also a talented writer and artist who found inspiration in literature and texts.

Diego’s primary research examined how Buddhism spread along the Silk Road across Asia, looking in particular at how Iranian, Sintic, and Indic traditions contributed to the development of Buddhism. Utilizing his linguistic expertise, Diego examined unpublished and undeciphered manuscripts, befitting his commitment to marginalized and overlooked people, arts, and writings that he sought to highlight.

While Diego leaves a legacy of scholarship, he is also remembered for his devotion to family and friends, most notably his wife and colleague, Stephanie Balkwill (Assistant Professor of Chinese Buddhism and Director of CBS) and their nine-year-old daughter, Remedios. Their home was richly filled with light, color, music, laughter, and love, and our hearts go out to Steph and Remedios. Their family, the UCLA community, and the field of Buddhist studies feels the emptiness left in the wake of Diego’s untimely passing.