[2] Gonda is recognized as one of the twentieth century's leading scholars of Asian language, literature and religion, particularly on texts and topics related to Hinduism and Buddhism.
He wrote with ease and elegance in Dutch, English and German, and had a breath-taking range of interests from the ancient literature of Indonesia and India to comparative religion and philology.
Like many Orientalists of the 20th century, Gonda never visited Asia although some of his publications appeared under the auspices of the "Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen", e.g. his comparative study on the Kavi-edition of the "Bhīşmaparwa", printed in Bandung (Java), 1937.
However, his lack of field experience was more than compensated for by his encyclopedic knowledge of Indic literature and his profound empathy for the religious culture of Asia.
B. van Buitenen who moved to the University of Chicago in 1961, and Henk Bodewitz succeeded Gonda to the chair of Sanskrit at Utrecht in 1976.