Johannes Adrianus Bernardus van Buitenen (21 May 1928 – 21 September 1979) was a Dutch Indologist at the University of Chicago where he was the George V. Bobrinskoy Professor of Sanskrit in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations.
[2] His interests ranged widely over literature, philosophy and philology, but toward the end of his career he focused primarily on the Mahābhārata.
He received his doctorate, cum laude, on 23 October 1953 and immediately departed for India where he stayed until 1956 as sub-editor of the " Dictionary of Sanskrit on Historical Principles" project at Deccan College, Poona .
[4] As a consequence he happily accepted an invitation to take a position at the University of Chicago and remained there until his death in 1979 at the age of fifty-one.
[2] Van Buitenen was on the board of directors of the American Oriental Society [5] and became a correspondent of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1963.