Arvind Sharma

Arvind Sharma was born in Varanasi, India. He earned a B.A. in History, Economics, and Sanskrit from Allahabad University in 1958 and continued his interests in economics at Syracuse University, earning an M.A. in 1970. Pursuing a life-long interest in comparative religion, Dr. Sharma gained an M.T.S. in 1974 and then a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard University in 1978. He was the first Infinity Foundation Visiting Professor of Indic Studies at Harvard University and succeeded Wilfred Cantwell Smith to the Birks Chair of Comparative Religion at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He has published over fifty books and five hundred articles in the fields of comparative religion, Hinduism, Indian philosophy and ethics, and the role of women in religion. Often cited as an authority on Hinduism, amongst his most noteworthy publications are The Hindu Gita: Ancient and Classical Interpretations of the Bhagavadgita (1986), The Experiential Dimension of Advaita Vedanta (1993), Our Religions: The Seven World Religions Introduced by Preeminent Scholars from Each Tradition (1994), and The Study of Hinduism (2003). Arvind Sharma is the author of A Guide to Hindu Spirituality. He also wrote the foreword to the anthology The Essential Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, edited by Rama P. Coomaraswamy.