Mircea Eliade

Mircea Eliade was born in 1907 in Bucharest. He studied at the University of Bucharest and, after completing his doctoral thesis, continued his studies at the University of Calcutta under Professor Superdranath Dasgupta, focusing on Sanskrit and Indian philosophy. From there, he traveled to the Himalayan region, where, over two years, he gathered material on the ashrams (religious communities of life and work for unmarried individuals, akin to an order) of Almora, Hardwar, and Rishikesh for his thesis, which was published in 1936 in Paris under the title "Essai sur les origines de la mystique indienne" ("Essay on the Origins of Indian Mysticism"). In 1933, he was appointed to the chair of Indian philosophy and general history of religions at the University of Bucharest. In 1938, he founded the journal "Zamolxis - Revue des etudes religieuses," which published three volumes. In 1940, he was appointed cultural attaché at the Romanian embassy in London and the following year in Lisbon as a diplomatic attaché for cultural affairs. In 1945, he was elected professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris and began writing primarily in French. He lectured on topics of religious history at the Sorbonne and other European universities. In 1957, he took up the chair of History of Religions at the University of Chicago. He passed away in Chicago, USA, in 1986.