David Shulman

Historian of Religion Class of 1987
location icon Location
Jerusalem, Israel
age iconAge
38 at time of award

About David's Work

David Shulman is an Indologist, an historian of religions, and a poet.

Shulman’s work bridges a chasm in studies of northern (Indo-Aryan) and southern (Dravidian) variants of Indian civilizations.  He has used sociological and anthropological approaches to examine some of the most profound issues in Indian religion and literature.  His Hebrew poetry is marked by its layered style and distinctive voice.  He is the author of Tamil Temple Myths: Sacrifice and Divine Marriage in the South Indian Shaiva Tradition (1980), The King and the Clown in South Indian Myth and Poetry (1985), Songs of the Harsh Devotee: The Tevaram of Cuntara Murttinayanar (1990), The Hungry God: Hindu Tales of Filicide and Devotion (1993), and The Wisdom of the Poets: Studies in Tamil, Telugu, and Sanskrit (2001).  He is co-author of God Inside Out: Síva’s Game of Dice (1997) and Siva in the Forest of Pines: An Essay on Sorcery and Self-Knowledge (2004), and co-editor of Orthodoxy, Heterodoxy and Dissent in India (1984) and Classical Telugu Poetry: An Anthology (2001).

Biography

Shulman is a professor of Indian studies and comparative religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Shulman received a B.A. (1971) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Ph.D. (1976) from the University of London.

Last updated January 1, 2005.

Published on July 1, 1987

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