John Dargavel Smith is a former professor of Sanskrit at Cambridge. His studies primarily focused on the language/literature/culture of Rajasthan including a major project on the hero-deity, Pabuji, a book on which was published in 1991 as The epic of Pabuji (Cambridge University Press). He earned a BA degree in Oriental Studies (Sanskrit and Hindi) in 1968 and a PhD in 1974. He was appointed Lecturer in Sanskrit at the School of Oriental and African Studies, 1975; University Lecturer in Sanskrit at Cambridge, 1984, and became promoted Reader in Sanskrit, October 2001. He retired in September 2007. In 2009 he published an abridged translation of the Mahabharata with Penguin Classics.
Professor J. Clifford Wright is an Emeritus Professor at SOAS, University of London with a specialist interest in Jaina Studies.
Paul Dundas was a British Indologist, an honorary fellow in Sanskrit language and Head of Asian studies at the University of Edinburgh. His teachings and research focused extensively on understanding Jainism, Buddhism, Sanskrit literature and Middle Indo-Aryan philology. He was regarded as one of the leading scholars in Jaina and Prakrit studies and he served on the Council of the Pali Text Society.
Rima Hooja is an archaeologist and historian of Rajasthan. Educated in Jaipur and at Cambridge University, from where she holds a PhD in archaeology, she is the author of several books, including History of Rajasthan. She is currently Consultant Director at the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum City Palace Jaipur, Managing Trustee of the Jaipur Virasat Foundation; and Visiting Professor at Delhi's School of Planning & Architecture and Ahmedabad University. A former Member of India’s National Monuments Authority, and a 'Distinguished International Academician' of Minnesota University, she is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Dr Hooja has been Director of Minnesota University’s MSID India Program for 12 years and also Faculty Director of New York State Independent College Consortium for Study in India Programme.
Evrim Binbaş received his PhD degree from the University of Chicago. After seven years at Royal Holloway, University of London, he moved to the Institute of Oriental and Asian Studies at the University of Bonn, Germany. He studies early modern Islamic history with a particular focus on the Timurid and Turkmen dynasties in the fifteenth century.
Edeltraud Harzer in a Senior lecturer in the Asian Studies department, University of Texas specialising in Sanskrit Language, Indian Philosophy and Literature, and Material Culture.
Gordon Waterfield was a British journalist, broadcaster and writer, chiefly known for his book What Happened to France?, in which he documents his experiences as a journalist in France during World War II.
Lesley Adkins is an English writer and archaeologist. She is a member of the Institute for Archaeologists and fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. She has written several books including Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages of Babylon.
Sir Arthur John Gielgud was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. A member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty, he gained his first paid acting work as a junior member of his cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terry's company in 1922.