Raphael Loewe was born in India in 1919, and grew up in Oxford, where he studied at the Dragon School. While teaching in Cologne in 1938, he witnessed the rise of Nazism and served in the Armed Forces during the Second World War. He enlisted and was drafted into the Pioneer Corps, and later trained as an officer, posted eventually to the Royal Armoured Corps. He taught at Leeds University (1949-53), and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (from 1954). He then moved to University College, London, in 1961 and was appointed Goldsmid Professor of Hebrew in 1981, a position he held until his retirement in 1984. He served as president of the Jewish Historical Society of England, the Society for Old Testament Study, and the British Association for Jewish Studies. He died in 2011.
Ram Raz was born in Tanjore in 1790. He mastered English while working as a clerk with the 2nd Battalion of the 16th Madras Native Infantry Regiment. He then became a vakil. Around 1815 he was a clerk in the office of the English Military Auditor General. He helped translate Tipu Sultan's code of regulations for revenue officers from Marathi to English. He was appointed head English master at the college of Fort St. George in Madras and subsequently was appointed to the position of Native Judge in Bangalore, Mysore state, where he worked for 23 years. He became a Corresponding Member of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1828 and his paper, On tiral by Jury was published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol.3, 1836, pp. 244-57.
From about 1825 onwards, at the suggestion of Richard Clarke, Madras Civil Service, Ram Raz began preparing material for a translation of the Silpa Sastra - the Hindu treatise on art. He commissioned accurate drawings from Indian artists working for the Survey Department, Madras. The work was completed by the end of 1831 and together with the translation were sent to the Royal Asiatic Society. They were received in July 1832 and it was agreed to publish the work. However, Ram Raz died circa 1833 and failed to see the publication which was printed in 1834.