Religious Studies

Also includes illustrations, and hyperlinked cross-references and links.

One Mail instructions

If you created personal profile for ANB using your indiana.edu email address, you will need to update your profile to your iu.edu email address before December 31, 2025. To update your ANB personal profile:

1. Visit ANB and  select Personal Profile from the top-right corner of the page
2. Log in
3. At the top-right corner, select your name and choose View personal profile
4. Select the My Account tab
5. Update the Email address field to your iu.edu email address
6. Enter your password in the Current Password field
7. Press Save
8. There will be a small notice above your name that says “Changes saved successfully”

Providing coverage of the most searched and studied people, Biography includes over 5,000 portal pages on contemporary and historical figures. Reference content is offered alongside videos, audio selections, images, primary sources, and magazine and journal articles from hundreds of major periodicals and newspapers. This resource is continuously updated.

BGMI indexes entries from reference books such as Who's Who in America or the Dictionary of National Biography. It covers contemporary and historical figures, indicates birth and death dates and gives the title and edition in which relevant entries can be found.

Current Biography Illustrated includes the entire contents of the printed monthly Current Biography, published since 1940. There are entries for people making headlines and historical figures dating back to World War II. Entries number more than 15,000 full text biographies, over 9,400 obituaries and more than 19,500 lively images. Profiles provide information on celebrities, politicians, business people, writers, actors, sports figures, artists, scientists, and others.

The Kitāb al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kabīr (Biography of Muḥammad, His Companions and the Successors up to the Year 230 of the Hijra) by Ibn Saʿd (d. 230 A.H./845 C.E.) is the earliest extant biographical dictionary on the life of the Prophet and the early generations of Muslims. The print version has been published between 1904 and 1940 by Brill, and a paperback reprint version was published in January 2022. This online version is full text searchable.

Includes access to current biographies of all individuals who appeared in any one of the following Marquis print titles since 1985: 

Marquis Biographies Online 
Who’s Who in America 
Who’s Who in the World 
Who’s Who of American Women 
Who’s Who in Science and Engineering 
Who’s Who in Medicine and Healthcare 
Who’s Who in American Art 
Who’s Who in American History 
Who’s Who in American Politics 

Please note: the site has a 10-minute automatic Time Out feature included. If you leave your session inactive, after 10 minutes, you will be asked to log in again. If you mistakenly close your internet browser window (before choosing "Log Out"), you need only wait 10 minutes to be refreshed so you can log back in.

Online version of the 60-volume print Oxford DNB, published September, 2004, a major revision of the original Dictionary of National Biography and its supplements. Since 2005 regular updates have extended the Dictionary’s coverage, now including biographies of more than 60,000 people who died in or before the year 2016.

Also includes access to annotated portraits of historical figures, customized maps of major regions of the Tibetan Plateau, biographical timelines, data exports, sample lesson plans, and syllabi.

AI Research Tool

The Libraries' subscription includes access to the Discovery Assistant AI research tool. This tool is in beta, and may be removed from the Oxford Academic site without advance notice.

One Mail instructions

If you created personal profile for Oxford Reference using your indiana.edu email address, you will need to update your profile to your iu.edu email address before December 31, 2025. To update your Oxford Reference personal profile:

1. Visit Oxford Reference and select Personal Profile from the top-right corner of the page
2. Log in
3. At the top-right corner, select your name and choose View personal profile
4. Select the My Account tab
5. Update the Email address field to your iu.edu email address
6. Enter your password in the Current Password field
7. Press Save
8. There will be a small notice above your name that says “Changes saved successfully”

Geographically it includes all of Europe and parts of Western Asia and North Africa. The International Encyclopaedia for the Middle Ages Online complements the Lexikon and fills in gaps in its coverage. New material is added each year.

A compilation of Buddhist terms, texts, temples, schools, persons, etc. that are found in East Asian Buddhist canonical sources. Since much of what East Asian Buddhists have written about is the Buddhism of India, Central Asia, and Tibet, the content of this database/dictionary/encyclopedia/translation glossary is pan-Buddhist in character.

The online equivalent of the printed Encyclopedia Britannica and more. A fully searchable and browsable collection of authoritative references, including Britannica's latest article database, hundreds of recent articles not found in the print Britannica. Thousands of illustrations; references to biographies, geography and yearbooks are available.

AI Research Tool

The Libraries' subscription includes access to the Ask Brittanica AI chatbot.

Since 1972, the Encyclopedia Judaica has been the leading source for information on the Jewish people, the Jewish faith and the state of Israel - how they have shaped and been influenced by our world.
The Encyclopedia Judaica is the authoritative reference resource for Jewish knowledge and life up to the present day. It is designed for both Jewish and non-Jewish readers and covers nine main subject categories: Contemporary Jewry, Education and modern scholarship, History, Jews in world culture, Judaism: practice, Judaism: thought, Language and literature, and Miscellaneous.

The publication is scheduled to comprise thirty volumes in print spanning a 15-year period (2009–2024). The online edition contains the entire contents of the printed edition (currently volumes 1–16), as well as articles ahead of print, and is updated quarterly.

Brill's New Pauly is the English edition of the authoritative Der Neue Pauly, published by Verlag J.B. Metzler since 1996. The encyclopaedic coverage and high academic standard of the work, the interdisciplinary and contemporary approach and clear and accessible presentation have made the New Pauly the unrivalled modern reference work for the ancient world.

The section on Antiquity of Brill´s New Pauly are devoted to Greco-Roman antiquity and cover two thousand years of history, ranging from the second millennium BC to early medieval Europe. Special emphasis is given to the interaction between Greco-Roman culture on the one hand, and Semitic, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavonic culture, and ancient Judaism, Christianity, and Islam on the other hand.

The section on the Classical Tradition is concerned with the aftermath of antiquity and the process of continuous reinterpretation and revaluation of the ancient heritage, including the history of classical scholarship. Many entries include maps and illustrations and the English edition will include updated bibliographic references.

The database is fully cross-searchable, and the user can limit searches to religious beliefs, countries and the like. In addition, explore answers to questions such as: Can there be more than one true religion?

It covers in detail the major world religions:

Buddhism: Mahayana, Theravada, Vajrayana
Islam: Ismaili Islam, Shia, Sufism, Sunni
Traditional Religions: Africa, Americas, Europe, Egypt and Near East, Greco-Roman 
Christianity: Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, Mormonism, Protestantism 
Judaism: Hasidism, Conservative Judaism, Orthodox Judaism, Reform Judaism 
Western Esotericism: Astrology, Gnosticism, Spiritualism
Chinese Religions: Confucianism, Daoism 
New Religions: Scientology, Unification Church, Wicca 
Unbelief: Agnosticism, Atheism, Humanism 
Hinduism: Shaivism, Shaktism, Vaishnavism, Smarta Tradition 
Shinto: Sect Shinto, Shrine Shinto 
Other Faiths and Beliefs: Baha'i, Jainism, Sikhism and Sant Mat, Zoroastrianism