Tillo Detige’s primary research project investigates the Digambara Jaina ascetic lineages of early modern Western and Central India. He works with unpublished manuscript and epigraphic materials collected during extensive field work, surveying ascetics’ memorials and visiting Digambara temples and manuscript collections throughout the region. His work has been published in a number of journal articles and chapters in edited volumes, including Brill’s Encyclopedia of Jainism (2020). Tillo obtained his PhD (2024) from the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany), where he also taught Sanskrit and Hindi. Prior to this, he also worked and lectured at the Department of Languages & Cultures at Ghent University (Belgium, 2012 to 2018) and taught South Asian Buddhism at the Carleton- Antioch Buddhist Studies in India program at Bodhgaya (India, fall 2018). He currently holds the Alka Siddhartha Dalal Endowed Postdoctoral Fellowship in Jainism at the Department of Religion at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, where he also teaches an introductory course on Jainism.
Sanjay Jain is currently working on his PhD at Ghent University (Belgium) on Jain Brahmins of South Karnataka. After obtaining a degree in Engineering at IIT, Roorkee (India), and an MBA from University of Massachusetts (USA), he started pursuing his interest in Sanskrit literature and culture, obtaining a Masters in Sanskrit Literature from Central Sanskrit University (India), as well as a Masters in South Asian Languages and Culture from Ghent University (Belgium). He is a volunteer teacher with Samskrit Bharati USA since 2013.
Sanjay’s other interests include yoga, Urdu language, poetry, and Indian classical music.
Eric Daniel Villalobos is a PhD Student at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He studies South Asian Religious traditions with a particular focus on Jainism. He received his BA in Religious Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an MA in South Asian Area Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. His current research uses historical and ethnographic methodologies to examine the Śvetāmbar Jain yatis, whose monastic praxis allowed them to travel by vehicle, use money, and practice āyurveda, astrology, and mantra-śāstra. This project takes him through the history of Indian monasticism and the colonial encounter with South Asian indigenous medical systems.