is a retired Professor in Cultural and Intellectual History of Modern South Asia at the University of Vienna

Martin Gaenszle studied Ethnology, Indology, and Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. From 1987 to 1993 he was head of the branch office of the South Asia Institute (University of Heidelberg) in Kathmandu, Nepal. He received his doctorate in 1989 and his habilitation in 1998. In the context of various projects he has conducted extensive field research in Nepal and northern India. Since 2007 he held a professorship at the Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Vienna until his retirement in 2022. From 2015 until 2022 he was Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Documentation of Inner and South Asian Cultural History (CIRDIS). His scholarly interests include religious pluralism, ethnicity, local history and oral traditions in South Asia, in particular the Himalayan region.