Mikael Aktor
is an associate professor of Religious Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. His publications include Ritualisation and Segregation: The Untouchability Complex in Indian Dharma Literature
(2008); “The Cāṇḍālī as Śakti: Untouchable Women in Some Tantric Texts” in Goddess Traditions in Tantric Hinduism: History, Practice and Doctrine
, ed. B. W. Olsen (Routledge, 2016); “Negotiating Karma: Penance in the Classical Indian Law Books” in Negotiating Rites
, eds. U. Hüsken and F. Neubert (Oxford, 2012); and “Untouchability in Brahminical Law Books” in From Stigma to Assertion: Untouchability, Identity and Politics in Early and Modern India,
eds. M. Aktor and R. Deliège (Museum Tusculanum, 2010).
Adam Bowles
is a senior lecturer in Asian Religions at the University of Queensland, Australia. His publications include Dharma, Disorder and the Political in Ancient India: The Āpaddharmaparvan of the Mahābhārata
(2007); Mahabharata, Book Eight: Karna
(2 parts 2006, 2008); and “Dharma and ‘Custom’: Semantic Persistence, Semantic Change and the Anxieties of the Principled Few” in Religions of South Asia
(2015).
David Brick
is a senior lecturer of Sanskrit at Yale University, USA. His publications include Brahmanical Theories of the Gift: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of the Dānakāṇḍa of the Kṛtyakalpataru
(2015); “Transforming Tradition into Texts: The Early Development of smṛti
” in Journal of Indian Philosophy
(2006); “The Dharmaśāstric Debate on Widow-Burning” in Journal of the American Oriental Society
(2010); and “Bhoḥ
as a Linguistic Marker of Brahmanical Identity” in Journal of the American Oriental Society
(2016).
Donald R. Davis, Jr.
is an associate professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. His publications include The Dharma of Business: Commercial Law in Medieval India
(2017); The Spirit of Hindu Law
(2010); and The Boundaries of Hindu Law: Tradition, Custom, and Politics in Medieval Kerala
(2004).
Richard H. Davis
is a professor of Religion and Asian Studies at Bard College, USA. His publications include The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography
(2014); A Priest’s Guide for the Great Festival
(2010); Lives of Indian Images
(1997); and Ritual in an Oscillating Universe: Worshiping Śiva in Medieval India
(1991).
Jonardon Ganeri
is a professor of Philosophy at New York University Abu Dhabi. His publications include The Concealed Art of the Soul: Theories of Self
and Practices of Truth in Indian Ethics and Epistemology
(2012); The Lost Age of Reason: Philosophy in Early Modern India 1450–1700 CE
(2011); Artha (Meaning): Testimony and the Theory of Meaning in Indian Philosophical Analysis
(2011); and Philosophy in Classical India: The Proper Work of Reason
(2001).
Ariel Glucklich
is a professor in the Department of Theology at Georgetown University, USA. His publications include Religious Experience and the Phenomenology of Pleasure
(2017); The Strides of Vishnu: A Historical Introduction to Hinduism
(2008); Sacred Pain: Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul
(2001); The Sense of Adharma
(1994); and Religious Jurisprudence in the Dharmaśāstras
(1988).
Andrea Gutiérrez
is a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin, USA, working on animals, animal language, and food in South Asia. Her publications include “Modes of Betel Consumption in Early India” in Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis
(2015) and “How to Understand a Parrot’s Words and What You Can Learn from Him: Early Indian Writers on Animal Speech” in The Rhetorical Animal
, eds. Kristian Bjørkdahl and Alex C. Parrish (Lexington Books, forthcoming).
Maria Heim
is a professor of Religion at Amherst College, USA. Her publications include The Forerunner of All Things: Buddhaghosa on Mind, Intention, and Agency
(2014); Theories of Gift in South Asia: Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Reflections on Dāna
(2004); “Mind in Theravada Buddhism” in Blackwell Companion to Buddhist Philosophy
(2013); “The Conceit of Self-Loathing” in Journal of Indian Philosophy
(2009); and “Differentiations in Indian/Hindu Ethics” in Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics
(2005).
Knut A. Jacobsen
is a professor of Religion at the University of Bergen, Norway. He is the editor-in-chief of Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism
, and his publications include Pilgrimage in the Hindu Tradition: Salvific Space
(2013); Kapila: Founder of Sāṃkhya and Avatāra of Viṣṇu
(2008); Hinduismen
(in Norwegian, 2003); and Prakṛti in Sāṃkhya-Yoga: Material Principle, Religious Experience, Ethical Implications
(1999).
Stephanie W. Jamison
is a professor of Asian Languages and Cultures and of Indo-European Studies at the University of California Los Angeles, USA. Her publications include the three-volume translation of the Ṛg Veda
(with Joel Brereton, 2014); Sacrificed Wife/Sacrificer’s Wife: Women, Ritual, and Hospitality in Ancient India
(1996); and The Ravenous Hyenas and the Wounded Sun: Myth and Ritual in Ancient India
(1991).
Timothy Lubin
is a professor of Religion at Washington and Lee University, USA. He coedited Hinduism and Law
(2010) and his publications include “Custom in the Vedic Ritual Codes as an Emergent Legal Principle” in Journal
of the American Oriental Society
(2016); “Writing and the Recognition of Customary Law in Premodern India and Java” in Journal of the American Oriental Society
(2015), and “Legal Diglossia: Modeling Discursive Practices in Premodern Indic Law” in Bilingual Discourse and Cross-Cultural Fertilisation
, ed. Whitney Cox and Vincenzo Vergiani (Institut français de Pondichéry, 2013).
Mark McClish
is an assistant professor of Religion at Northwestern University, USA. His publications include The Arthaśāstra: Selections from the Classic Indian Work on Statecraft
(with Patrick Olivelle, 2012); “The Four Feet of Legal Procedure and the Origins of Jurisprudence in Ancient India” (with Patrick Olivelle) in Journal of the American Oriental Society
(2015); “The Dependence of Manu's Seventh Chapter on Kauṭilya's Arthaśāstra” in Journal of the American Oriental Society
(2014); and “Is the Arthaśāstra
a Mauryan Document?” in Reimagining Aśoka,
ed. Patrick Olivelle et al. (Oxford, 2012).
James McHugh
is an associate professor of Religion at the University of Southern California, USA. His publications include Sandalwood and Carrion: Smell in South Asian Religion and Culture
(2012); “From Precious to Polluting: Tracing the History of Camphor in Hinduism” in Material Religion
(2014); “Alcohol in Pre-modern South Asia” in A History of Alcohol and Drugs in Modern South Asia
, ed. Harald Fischer-Tiné and Jana Tschurenev (Taylor & Francis, 2013); and “The Classification of Smells and the Order of the Senses in Indian Religious Traditions” in Numen
(2007).
Axel Michaels
is a professor emeritus at the South Asia Institute of the University of Heidelberg, Germany. His publications include Homo Ritualis: Hindu Ritual and Its Significance for Ritual Theory
(2015); Śiva in Trouble: Festivals and Rituals at the Paśupatinātha Temple of Deopata
(2008); Growing Up: Hindu and Buddhist Initiation Rituals among Newar Children in Bhaktapur, Nepal
(with Niels Gutschow, 2008); and Hinduism: Past and Present
(2004).
Christian Lee Novetzke
is a professor in the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, USA. His publications include The Quotidian Revolution: Vernacularization, Religion, and the Premodern Public Sphere in India
(2016); Amar Akbar Anthony
(with Andy Rotman and William Elison, 2016); and Religion and Public Memory: A Cultural History of Saint Namdev in India
(2008).
Patrick Olivelle
is a professor emeritus in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. His publications include A Dharma Reader: Classical Indian Law
(2016); A Sanskrit Dictionary of Law and Statecraft
(2015); King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India: Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra
(2013); Manu’s Code of Law: the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra
(2005); The Early Upaniṣads
(1998); and The Āśrama System
(1993).
Ludo Rocher
was the W. Norman Brown Professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. His publications include Vyavahārasaukhya
(2016); Studies in Hindu Law and Dharmaśāstra
(2012); Jīmūtavāhana’s Dāyabhāga: The Hindu Law of Inheritance in Bengal
(2002); The Purāṇas
(1986); Smṛticintāmaṇi of Gaṅgāditya
(1976); and Vācaspati Miśra: Vyavahāracintāmaṇi
(1956).
Matthew R. Sayers
is an associate professor of Religion at Lebanon Valley College, USA. His publications include Feeding the Dead: Ancestor Worship in Ancient India
(2013); “Early Gayā: The Emergence of Tīrthaśrāddha
” in Religions of South Asia
(2016); “The śrāddha:
The Development of Ancestor Worship in Classical Hinduism” in Religion Compass
(2015); “Gayā-Bodhgayā: The Origin of a Pilgrimage Complex” in Religions of South Asia
(2010); and “The Early History of the Term śāstra
” in SAGAR
(2004).
Gregory Schopen
is a professor of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California Los Angeles, USA. His publications include Buddhist Nuns, Monks, and Other Worldly Matters
(2014); Figments and Fragments of Mahayana Buddhism in India
(2005); Buddhist Monks and Business Matters
(2004); and Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks
(1997).