Richard H. Davis

Professor Emeritus and Research Professor of Religion

Academic Program Affiliation(s): Asian Studies, Classical Studies, Interdisciplinary Study of Religions, Theology

About Richard H. Davis Professor Davis’s primary research and teaching interests include classical and medieval Hinduism, Indian history, South Asian visual arts, and Sanskrit. He is the author of The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography (Princeton University Press, 2014); A Priest’s Guide to the Great Festival: Aghorasiva's Mahotsavavidhi (2009); Lives of Indian Images (1997; winner of the 1999 A. K. Coomaraswamy Prize); and Ritual in an Oscillating Universe: Worshiping Siva in Medieval India (1991). He has edited two volumes, Picturing the Nation: Iconographies of Modern India (2007) and Images, Miracles, and Authority in Asian Religious Traditions (1998), and he also wrote the text for a catalog of Indian religious prints, Gods in Print: Masterpieces of India’s Mythological Art (Mandala, 2012). Currently he is continuing work on the reception history of the Bhagavad Gita and on a history of religions in early South Asia. Fellowships include Guggenheim, Fulbright-Hays, Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He previously taught at Yale University. BA, University of Chicago; MA, University of Toronto; PhD, University of Chicago. At Bard since 1997.

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