Richard H. Davis

Richard H. Davis is Research Professor in the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion Program at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Formerly he taught for thirty-five years at Yale University and Bard College. He is currently teaching part-time in the Cheshire Correctional Facility, Cheshire, CT, through the Wesleyan University Center for Prison Education.

He is a historian of South Asian religious traditions. His most recent book publication is Religions of Early India: A Cultural History (Princeton University Press, November 2024). He is author of five other books: Ritual in an Oscillating Universe: Worshiping Siva in Medieval India (Princeton, 1991), Lives of Indian Images (Princeton, 1997), Global India, circa 100 CE: South Asia in Early World History (AAS, 2010), A Priest's Guide for the Great Festival (Oxford, 2010), and The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography (Princeton, 2014). He has edited two volumes, and also wrote the text for a catalog of Indian religious prints, Gods in Print: Masterpieces of India’s Mythological Art (Mandala, 2012).

His current book project is a biography of Rajaraja, the early 11th century Cola king, and the Shaiva temple he constructed in Thanjavur.