Jean Varenne was a French Indologist and Sanskrit scholar who played a leading role in the academic study of Indian civilization in France. Born in Marseille in 1926, he studied at Aix-Marseille University and the University of Paris, earning a PhD in Sanskrit at the École des Hautes Études. Varenne taught in India and Cambodia before founding the Department of Indian Studies at Aix-Marseille University in the early 1960s. He later became a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and El Colegio de México. In 1980, he co-founded the Institute of Indo-European Studies at Jean Moulin University Lyon 3, where he was appointed professor of Sanskrit philology and Indian religions. Alongside his scholarly work, Varenne became active in right-wing intellectual circles, including GRECE and the Front National’s Institute of Formation. He also directed important academic series on Indian and Indo-European studies at Les Belles Lettres. At the time of his death in 1997, he was working on an encyclopedic dictionary of religions, with a focus on Hinduism.