Alain Daniélou (; 4 October 1907 – 27 January 1994) was a French historian, Indologist, intellectual, musicologist, translator, writer and convert to and scholar of the Shaivite branch of Hinduism.
In 1991, he was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, the highest honour conferred by Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy for Music, Dance, and Drama.
Early life and education
His mother, Madeleine Clamorgan, was from an old family of the Norman nobility; a devout Roman Catholic,
He received his education at the Institution Notre-Dame de Sainte-Croix, Neuilly-sur-Seine, and at St. John's College, Annapolis.
In 1932, during his first trip to India, he met poet Rabindranath Tagore. He also translated some works of Swami Karpatri, the samnyasin by whom he was initiated into Shaivism under the Hindu name Shiva Sharan ("Protected by Shiva"). In 1942, he published his translation of the Tirukkural, a Tamil moral literature.
In 1953, he joined the Adyar Library and Research Centre at the Theosophical Society Adyar near Madras (now Chennai), where he was the director of a centre of research into Sanskrit literature until 1956. In 1959, he became a member of French Institute of Pondicherry, which works in the field of Indology.