Legendary sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar has died.He breathed his last at a hospital in San Diego in the United States.He was 92.Ravi Shankar spearheaded the worldwide spread of Indian music and had a major influence on Western musicians .

Shankar, whose health had been fragile for the past several years, underwent a surgery on Thursday at the Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, California where he breathed his last.The music icon was admitted to the hospital last week when he complained of breathlessness.

A recipient of Bharat Ratna in 1999, Shankar maintained residences in both India and the United States.

He is survived by his wife Sukanya; daughter Norah Jones; daughter Anoushka Shankar Wright and husband Joe Wright and grandchildren .A three-time Grammy award winner, Shankar last performed in California on November 4 along with his daughter Anoushka Shankar.

Shankar has also been nominated for the 2013 Grammys for his album “The Living Room Sessions Part-1” and was pitted against Anoushka in the same category.

A Bengal, he was born Robindra Shankar on April 7, 1920 in Varanasi, the youngest of four brothers, and spent his first 10 years in relative poverty, brought up by his mother. He was almost eight before he met his absent father, a globe-trotting lawyer, philosopher, writer and former minister to the Maharajah of Jhalawar.

In 1930, his eldest brother Uday Shankar uprooted the family to Paris, and over the next eight years Shankar enjoyed the limelight in Uday's troupe, which toured the world introducing Europeans and Americans to Indian classical and folk dance.He was Music Director of All India Radio from 1949 to 1956.

As a performer, composer and teacher, Shankar was an Indian classical artist of the highest rank and achieved his greatest fame in the 1960s when he was embraced by the Western counterculture.

Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has mourned the death of the Sitar maestro Pandit . In his condolence message, Dr Singh said with his death an era has ended . The Prime Minister described him as a national treasure and global ambassador of India's cultural heritage.

The Information and Broadcasting minister Manish Tewari said in the demise of Pandit Ravi Shankar, India has lost a great soul. Speaking to reporters outside Parliament Mr Tewari said, Pandit Ravi Shankar has enriched Indian music and culture around the world.