Malati J. Shendge is an established Indologist. She is a prolific writer and has devoted several books to the understanding of the Indus civilization. Amongst the books she has published are: The Civilized Demons: The Harappans in the Rigveda (1977); The Songs and the Ruins: Rigveda in the Harappan Setting (1995); The Aryas, Facts without Fancy and Fiction (1996); The Language of the Harappans: From Akkadian to Sanskrit (1997) and Rigveda: The Original Meaning and its Recovery (1989). Besides, she has to her credit over seventy-five research papers published in scholarly journals of repute.
She has truly situated the Indus civilization as the beginning of Indias history and culture. The Rigveda, Sanskrit language, and Indias culture, according to her, have descended from the Indus civilization.
Shendge is a multidisciplinarian. She has worked on Buddhist Tantrism, the science tradition of India, the origin of writing, etc. Presently, she is director, RDV Centre for the Study of Indian Tradition in Pune.