Wendy Doniger

Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty
Wendy Doniger at Shimer College in 2012
Born	Wendy Doniger (1940-11-20) November 20, 1940 (age 76) New York City, New York, U.S.
Residence	Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Citizenship	United States
Fields	Sanskrit literature, Hinduism, Mythology, History of Religions
Institutions	University of Chicago
Alma mater	Radcliff College (BA), Harvard University (PhD), Oxford University (DPhill)
Doctoral advisor	Daniel H. H. Ingalls, Sr. (Harvard) R.C.Zaehner (Oxford)
Doctoral students	62, including Jeffrey Kripal and Alexander Argüelles

Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (born November 20, 1940) is an American Indologist whose professional career has spanned five decades. A scholar of Sanskrit and Indian textual traditions, her major works include, Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva; Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook; The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology; Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts; and The Rig Veda: An Anthology, 108 Hymns Translated from the Sanskrit. She is the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of History of Religions at the University of Chicago, and has taught there since 1978. She served as president of the Association for Asian Studies in 1998.

Doniger was born in New York City to immigrant non-observant Jewish parents, and raised in Great Neck, New York, where her father, Lester L. Doniger (1909–1971), ran a publishing business. While in high school, she studied dance under George Balanchine and Martha Graham.

She graduated summa cum laude in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Radcliffe College in 1962, and received her M.A. from Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in June 1963. She then studied in India in 1963–1964 with a 12-month Junior Fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies. She received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in June 1968, with a dissertation on Asceticism and Sexuality in the Mythology of Siva, supervised by Daniel H. H. Ingalls, Sr. She obtained a D. Phil. in Oriental Studies from Oxford University, in February 1973, with a dissertation on The Origins of Heresy in Hindu Mythology, supervised by R. C. Zaehner.