Anantanand Rambachan is a professor of religion, philosophy and Asian studies at St. Olaf College. He researches and writes about the Hindu community, including unique challenges and opportunities for Hindus in the United States.

John Llewellyn is professor of religious studies at Missouri State University in Springfield. He is the editor of Defining Hinduism: A Reader, a volume of essays.

Brian Hatcher is a scholar of the Hindu tradition in colonial and contemporary India at Tufts University. His research interests include the transformation of intellectual and social life in colonial Bengal, the interrogation of modernity under the conditions of colonialism, and the expression of religious change among emergent Hindu movements.

Daniel Gold is a professor of South Asian religions at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. He specializes in North Indian devotional traditions.

Anne Feldhaus is a professor of religious studies at Arizona State University in Tempe. She specializes in folk Hinduism, medieval Hinduism and religious geography. Her publications include Connected Places: Region, Pilgrimage, and Geographical Imagination in Maharashtra (2003), and Water and Womanhood: Religious Meanings of Rivers in Maharashtra (1995).

Nancy Auer Falk is a professor emeritus of the department of comparative religion at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. She is the author of Living Hinduisms: An Explorer’s Guide.

One of the great texts of Vaishnavism, it primarily centers around its supreme deity, Lord Vishnu, and his avatars such as Krishna.

Another key text in Vaishnavism, the Garuda Purana centers again around Lord Vishnu, this time in the form of a dialog between Vishnu and Garuda, the King of Birds.

Composed in Sanskrit by Veda Vyasa, the text is considered as a major purana for Devi devotees.