Balliol College has named a new building after Dr Lakshman Sarup (1894–1946), the first student at Oxford to submit for a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree. Sarup was awarded the degree by Balliol in 1919 on the topic of Yaska’s Nirukta, the oldest Sanskrit treatise on etymology. Oxford began offering the DPhil degree in 1917, taking inspiration from research degrees in Germany, and Dr Sarup was one of two students to enrol for a doctoral degree in its inaugural year, the other being New Zealander James Gatenby.
