Professor Anantanand Rambachan is an external advisor for the Ansari Institite's Nasr Book Prize and both a rewnowned scholar and an interreligious practitioner. He currently serves as co-president of Religions for Peace, the largest global interfaith network. His books include: Accomplishing the Accomplished: The Vedas as a Source of Valid Knowledge in Shankara, The Limits of Scripture: Vivekananda's Reinterpretation of the Authority of the Vedas, The Advaita Worldview: God, World and Humanity, A Hindu Theology of Liberation and Essays in Hindu Theology. He has served as an advisor and contributor for the World Council of Churches and the Ethics in Action dialogues at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Professor Rambachan was one of the Ansari Institute's distingished guests at the Parliament of the World's Religions and spoke at The Pen and the Sword panel which recognized both author Anthony Annett (for the Nasr Book Prize) and lifetime service award winner Ravinder Kaur Nijjar.
In this piece, Explaining the Hindu divide at the Parliament of the World's Religions, published August 23rd by Religion News Service, Professor Rambachan lays bare a tension amongst Hindus that may be familiar to individuals of other faith traditions. Professor Rambachan critiques the nationalistic trends within religious traditions that threatens the transcendent nature of religion saying, "today what is most likely to distinguish one Hindu from another is their understanding of the relationship between Hinduism and the state."