Vernon Katz received his doctorate from Oxford University, where he studied the Upanishads with Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who later became president of India. Katz assisted the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation, in his classic translation of the Bhagavad Gita. Katz's books include The Blue Salon and Other Follies, an account of growing up as a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany.

Thomas Egenes received his doctorate from the University of Virginia, after graduating from the University of Notre Dame. He is an associate professor at Maharishi University of Management. Egenes has written some of today's leading guides for learning Sanskrit, which are used at universities in the U.S., Europe, and Australia.