Zaehner, Robert Charles (1913–74). Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford from 1953. Although a specialist in Persian, from 1953 he became absorbed in the textual traditions of India. He expounded and criticized the Hindu classics ‘from inside’ and correlated them with the Catholicism to which he had been converted in 1936. His major works are Mysticism, Sacred and Profane (1957), At Sundry Times (1958), Hindu and Muslim Mysticism (1960), Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (1961), Hinduism (1962), The Bhagavad-Gītā (1969), Concordant Discord (1970). Towards the end of his life, he became increasingly preoccupied with the problems of rationality and unreason, good and evil, the latter given full rein in his last book Our Savage God (1974).

Goff, Thomas (Robert Charles) (b London, 1898; d London, 1975). Eng. builder of clavichords, harpsichords, and lutes. Gift of a clavichord in 1932 impelled him to build one. Began business in partnership with J. C. Cobby 1933, later opening his own London headquarters. His particular achievement has been to adapt tone and dynamics to modern concert hall requirements. Adopted clavichord design of Herbert Lambert of Bath.