Eugène Burnouf was a French scholar, an Indologist and orientalist. His notable works include a study of Sanskrit literature, translation of the Hindu text Bhagavata Purana and Buddhist text Lotus Sutra. He wrote a foundational text on Buddhism and also made significant contributions to the deciphering of Old Persian cuneiform.

Émile-Louis Burnouf was a leading nineteenth-century Orientalist and racialist author of Aryanism. He was a professor at the faculté des lettres at Nancy University, then principal of the French School at Athens from 1867–1875. He was also the author of a Sanskrit-French dictionary.