Alain Daniélou (1907–1994)

Alain Danielou was born in Paris in 1907. After studying in France and the United States, he devoted himself to musicology, traveling in North Africa, the Middle East, China, Japan, and Indonesia. He then settled in India, first at Santiniketan and then at Benares, where for more than twenty years mostra altro he studied Sanskrit, music, and philosophy with traditional Hindu scholars. In 1945, he was appointed Assistant Director/Professor of the College of Music at the Hindu University of Benares. He founded and directed the Institute for Comparative Music Studies in Berlin and Venice, also directing the UNESCO anthologies of Oriental Music and Musical Sources. In 1971, he donated his precious library to the Cini Foundation in Venice. The author of more than thirty books on the religion, history, and arts of India and the Mediterranean, Alain Danielou died in 1994 mostra meno