Michael S. Allen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. His areas of research include Hinduism, Indian philosophy, and environmental ethics. He is the co-founder of the Hindu Philosophy unit at the American Academy of Religion, and his work has appeared in the Journal of Indian Philosophy, the Journal of Hindu Studies, the International Journal of Hindu Studies, and Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy.

"We have learned much in the last two decades about forms of knowledge in early modern India. Michael Allen pushes us to consider how those forms develop in early colonial India, before the motifs of reform, revival, and renaissance condition our narratives of modern Hinduism. By weaving together his expertise in Sanskrit and vernacular traditions of philosophy, Allen shows us that the scholastic and the popular are never far apart. The Ocean of Inquiry, like its subject, will become a modern classic." -- Anand Venkatkrishnan, Assistant Professor, University of Chicago Divinity School

"Michael Allen's The Ocean of Inquiry examines the thought of Niścaldās, an Advaita Vedānta philosopher who made the fascinating choice to compose his works in Hindi instead of Sanskrit. Allen's book is indispensable for understanding the development of modern Vedānta. More broadly, it sheds new light on the continued re-negotiation between Sanskrit and vernacular languages in 19th century India and the gradual development of a concept of Hinduism based on a single shared path of Vedic authority." -- Andrew J. Nicholson, Associate Professor, Department of Asian and Asian American Studies, Stony Brook University