Betty Heimann studied Sanskrit and cultural epistemology (philology) in Kiel, Heidelberg, Gottingen and Bonn. In 1919, Heimann got PhD from Kiel University, where her thesis was on Upanishad Bhashya. Besides, she was the founder of the Department of Indian Philosophy and Sanskrit at the University of Ceylon, where she taught for several years. Her major works are: Studies for the Characteristic of Indian Thinking (1930); Indian and Western Philosophy — A Study in Contrasts (1937); and Facets of Indian Thought (1964).