In 1963 Skjærvø enrolled at the University of Oslo where he studied French, Latin, and Sanskrit, with a semester in 1965 at the Sorbonne in Paris. He earned his B.A. (candidatus magisterii) in 1970. In 1974 he completed his M.A. with the thesis, Undersøkelser til verbalsystemet i gammelpersisk og vastly middeliransk (Investigations into the verbal systems of Old Persian and Western Middle Iranian), on which he subsequently based his “Remarks on the Old Persian Verbal System.”^[2] He then completed his Ph. D. in 1981 from the University of Oslo with the dissertation, The Paikuli Inscription, Restoration and Interpretation. Pt. 1: Restored Text and Translation (109 pp.). Pt 2: Introduction and Commentary.

Skjærvø served in several academic positions at Harvard including:

• Chair, Committee for Inner Asian and Altaic Studies, 1993–2000
• Chair, Department of Sanskrit, 1995–1996
• Chair, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations, 2002–2006 and 2009

He has also been invited as:

• Guest lecturer, Eötvös Loránd Tudomány University, Budapest, 1997
• Guest lecturer, Université de la Sorbonne, Paris
• Guest lecturer, Università di Studi di Roma, La Sapienza
• Visiting professor, Collège de France, Paris, May–June 2000

Skjærvø is also a Consulting Editor for Encyclopædia Iranica.^[3]

Skjærvø has been published widely in several languages:

English edit

• Skjærvø, Prods Oktor (2016). An Introduction to Old Persian.
• Skjærvø, Prods Oktor (2012). The Spirit of Zoroastrianism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300170351.
• Skjærvø, Prods Oktor (2004). This Most Excellent Shine of Gold, King of Kings of Sutras. The Khotanese Suvarṇabhāsottamasūtra, Sources of Oriental languages and literature 60-61, Central Asian sources 5-6. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.
• Skjærvø, Prods Oktor; Ursula Sims-Williams (contributor) (2002). Khotanese Manuscripts from Chinese Turkestan in The British Library. A Complete Catalogue with Texts and Translations (Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum II/V, Texts VI). London: The British Library. {{cite book}}: |author2= has generic name (help)
• Humbach, Helmut; Josef Horblit Elfenbein; Prods Oktor Skjærvø (1991). The Gathas of Zarathustra: and the other Old Avestan Texts. C. Winter. ISBN 978-3825344733.
• Humbach, Helmut; Prods Oktor Skjærvø (1983). The Sassanian Inscription of Paikuli: 3.1. Restored Text and Translation; 3.2. Commentary. Reichert. ISBN 978-3-88226-156-1.

Norwegian edit

• Thomassen, Einar; Prods Oktor Skjærvø (2011). Manikeiske skrifter. Transliterates. (Verdens hellige skrifter). Oslo: Bokklubben.
• Skjærvø, Prods Oktor (2003). Zarathustras sanger. De eldste iranske skriftene. (Verdens hellige skrifter). Oslo: De norske bokklubbene.

• Faculty member page, Harvard University
• Profile on the Consulting Editors page of the Encyclopædia Iranica
• Official profile on Academia.edu
• Curriculum Vitae
• Complete list of publications
• Prods Oktor Skjærvø’s textbooks, hosted online at Harvard University, on:
  • Old Avestan
  • Young Avestan
  • Old Persian
  • Manichaean Sogdian
  • Introduction to Zoroastrianism
  • Introductions to Manicheism