Digital Library

Curator

Dr. Jason Schwartz

Lecturer in Religious Studies
Department of Religious Studies
Stanford University
Palo Alto, CA, USA

Technical Director

Dr. Tyler Neill

Tyler Neill is an independent Sanskrit scholar and programmer based in Brooklyn, New York. He earned his PhD from Leipzig University in 2022, with research focused on Buddhist and Nyāya debates over perception and the nature of objects in the Nyāyabhūṣaṇa, combining methods from philosophy, philology, and digital humanities. He then worked full-time for several years as a professional software engineer, further developing his skills in modern programming. Now, as an affiliate of the University of Pennsylvania, he is building digital infrastructure for Sanskrit textual studies, including web apps, data repositories, and new digitizations of classical Sanskrit and Prakrit works. His own project ecosystem, Kalpataru Grove, is developing in close dialogue with his work for Muktabodha.

Research Scholar-in-Residence

Dr. Ben Williams

Associate Professor and Muktabodha Chair of Yoga Studies
Naropa University
Boulder, CO, USA

Ben Williams is an intellectual historian focused on South Asian religions and the history of Śaiva tantra. He is an Associate Professor of Hinduism at Naropa University, and serves as the faculty lead for Naropa’s MA program in Yoga Studies. In 2025, Ben became the first scholar-in-residence for the Muktabodha Indological Research Institute, where he is guiding a number of initiatives related to the preservation, translation, and collaborative study of Sanskrit texts. This position coincides with the funding of a Muktabodha Chair of Yoga Studies at Naropa University, which Ben will hold until Spring 2028.

Varanasi Office Director

Dr. Anirban Dash

Digitization Project Manager & Linguist

Dr. Dash is an accomplished Sanskrit scholar who oversees the digitization and transcription of manuscripts in Muktabodha’s office in Varanasi, India. He has a working knowledge of well over a dozen different Sanskrit scripts and other languages, including Brahmi, Siddham, Kutila, Sharada, Grantha, Newari, Ranjana, Bhujomol, Maithili, old Bengali, Karani, old Devanagari, Kaithi, Sinhali, Burmese, Lao, Pyu and Lana.

Dr. Das received his Ph.D. from the University of Pune, Maharashtra, India. He subsequently held positions as a visiting faculty member in the Indology section, Department of Asian Studies, Institute for Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark and as Assistant Professor of Pali and Buddhist studies at the University of Pune. He currently serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Sanskrit, Central University of Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, Varanasi, India.

In addition to his role with the Muktabodha Institute, Dr. Dash was appointed Director of the National Manuscript Mission of the Government of India in 2022.

Senior Sanskritist

Dr. Trilochan Pradhan

Dr. Trilochan Pradhan has long been engaged in the editing of manuscripts, particularly those that serve as primary sources of the Indian Knowledge System. He has obtained PhD degree from Banaras Hindu University. He is currently working as a Project Coordinator at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), Varanasi.

Previously, he served as a Lecturer at Rani Padmavati Tara Yoga Tantra Adarsh Sanskrit College, affiliated with the Central Sanskrit University (2004–2006), and as a Project Fellow in the UGC-funded project “Word Index of Kālidāsa’s Literature” in the Department of Sanskrit, Faculty of Arts, Banaras Hindu University(2007–2009).

He possesses special expertise in ancient scripts such as Devanāgarī, Odia, Gauḍī, Newārī, Śāradā, and Grantha. He has more than ten published books to his credit. In recognition of his significant contributions to the field of Indology, the Akhil Bhāratīya Vidvat Parishad, Kashi, honored him with the ‘Ānandavardhana Award’ in 2017.

Transcription Staff

Vinay Mishra, Dharmendra Kumar, Sandeep Kumar Yadav