Pepita Seth was born in Suffolk in 1942. She studied film editing and gained opportunities to work under film directors like Ted Kotcheff and Stanley Donen. On finding the diary of her grandfather, she decided to trace his life with the British Army in India. She landed in Kolkata in 1970. She travelled from Kolkata to Guruvayur where she became fascinated by the temple arts and rituals of Kerala. For the next nine years, she visited Kerala several times and, in 1979, she settled in Guruvayur. Eventually the Guruvayur Devaswom Board allowed her access to the temple. She has published many books and articles on the temple arts and rituals. In recognition of her services to the fields of art and culture, the Government of India, in 2012, bestowed on her the civilian award of Padma Shri.
Herbert Niel Randle C.I.E. F.B.A. (1880–1973) was the librarian of the India Office Library (1933–49; assistant librarian 1927–33),pro fessor of philosophy at Queen's College, Benares, and a writer on Indian philosophy.
Graeme Gardiner is a conservator who trained at Camberwell College. After qualifying he worked first at the Royal Asiatic Society before setting up Preservation Solutions and working with other heritage organisations.
Jacqueline Filliozat has been a librarian, a lecturer and a research fellow during forty years in Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, working in Pāli philology. She dedicated herself specially to cataloguing Pāli manuscript collections in Europe and Southeast Asia as well, searching for new texts to be distributed to students and colleagues preparing romanized editions. Now retired, she is currently feeding the EFEO PALI Database available in EFEO Paris Library for consultation and compiling a Vocabulary of Pāli codicology (Abhidhānasadda pāḷipotthakañāṇa). (Information taken from academia.edu website: https://independent.academia.edu/jacquelinefilliozat.)
Jonathan Rhys-Lewis is a self-employed, preservation and collections care consultant with over 35 years experience both within local government and as self-employed consultant. He is a professionally qualified archive conservator and an accredited member of the Institute of Conservation. He works with organisations to offer specialist advice on the preservation management of paper-based materials in heritage collections. (Information taken from his website: https://www.jonathanrhys-lewis.co.uk/about.php.)
John Duncan Martin Derrett was Professor of Oriental Laws at the University of London, from 1965 to 1982, and afterwards Emeritus Professor.
Derrett was educated at Emanuel School, London, Jesus College, Oxford and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, before studying law at the Inns of Court School, London. He was called to the bar, Gray's Inn, in 1953. He is the author of a number of works on law and the history of systems of law, India, religion (particularly Christianity) and comparative religion. In his later life he was particularly interested in comparisons of Christianity with Buddhism. Derrett also translated works by others into English.