Ishwar C. Harris

Ishwar C. Harris (Hindi: इश्वर हर्रिस, Urdu: اِشور ہارِّس‎), (born 1943), is a professor of religion whose focus spans Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. He is considered an expert on the culture and history of India, and is the author of several books and numerous articles on the topic of Eastern religions. His works have also dealt with Gandhian philosophy and the Sarvodaya movement.

Ishwar Harris was born into a Methodist Christian family in Uttar Pradesh, India on 13 July 1943. In 1961 Harris received his B.A. from the Lucknow Christian College in India. This was followed by a M.Div. from the Howard University School of Divinity in 1967, S.T.M. from the Pacific School of Religion in 1969, and a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School in 1974.

Harris taught religion at Rutgers University and San Bernardino State College before coming to the College of Wooster in 1981 where he was the Synod Professor of Religious Studies there until his formal retirement in May 2009. Harris has brought groups of students to study abroad in the Thai and Southeast Asian Studies Program (http://thaistudies.payap.ac.th) at Payap University in Chiang Mai, Thailand three times in 2003, 2007 and 2009 (Aug-Dec).

Harris is a member of the American Academy of Religion, the Society for Asian Studies, ASIANetwork, and the Ohio Academy of Religion. Harris spent five weeks in 1999 at the Tofukuji Monastery in Kyoto with the Rinzai master and head abbot, Keido Fukushima. This was followed by a three-month trip in 2001 and a return trip in 2003. The result of those trips was the book The Laughing Buddha of Tofukuji. Harris is married to his wife, Jyotsna, and has two daughters, Anjali and Meera. In addition, he is a member of a local United Methodist church in Wooster, Ohio.