Contents: Preface. List of contributors. Introduction/Narendra K. Dash. 1. Buddhism in Indian Literature/Swami Prabhananda. 2. Buddhist themes in Indian Literature/Biswanath Banerjee. 3. Buddhist perspective in the modern Bhotia Literature/Suniti K. Pathak. 4. Buddhist themes in Pre-Modern Bengali Literature: A study on the Nava Caryapada/Dipak Kumar Barua. 5. The influence of Buddhism on Bengali Literature/Sumita Chakrabarti. 6. Aspects of the Buddhist influence: Bengali and other Indian Literature/Biplab Chakrabarty. 7. Influence of Buddhism in Tagore's Literature/Sabuj Kali Sen (Mitra). 8. Buddha in Rabindra Literature/Bhabatosh Datta. 9. Buddhist Samgha in the early Indian texts/Pranabananda Jash. 10. Buddhism and Oriya Literature/Bijayananda Kar. 11. Impact of Buddhism on Oriya Fiction/Manoranjan Pradhan. 12. Buddhism as reflected in early Tamil Literature/C. Muthiah. 13. Buddhism as reflected in Tamil authors of Pali/Bela Bhattacharya. 14. The influence of Buddhism on Telugu language and Literature/J. Sitaramamma. 15. Buddhism and Hindi Literature/Angraj Chaudhary. 16. Impact of Buddhism in Ajneya's works/Bimalendra Kumar. 17. Buddhism and Sanskrit drama/Kalpika Mukherjee. 18. Influence of Buddhism on Urdu Literature/Aziz Haider. 19. Buddhism in Tripura: a brief account/Sirajuddin Ahmed. 20. Remarks on recent works in Bengali on Buddhist metaphysics and Pramana Sastra/Rita Gupta. 21. Representation of Buddhism in Indian poetry in English/Niranjan Mohanty. [One article is in Hindi].

"Buddhism has made immense contribution and influence to Indian life and thought. Mahatma Gandhi once said, "Buddha's teachings like his heart was all-expanding and all-embracing, so it has survived his body and swept across the face of the earth".

That Buddha's words exercised a potent influence on the culture of India over the centuries cannot be denied and it is expected that the Literatures in the major languages of India received inspiration in some way or the other from Buddha and his teachings in their literary and philosophical treatment.

The present volume examines the relationship of Buddhism with a particular Literature and see how it reacted to Buddhism and Buddhist principles in the different periods of its history. The book also explains how Buddha's words were received in the society by common people as reflected in the literary words and how it gave rise to particular band of writers, composers and thought-leaders in different languages.

The volume is a collection of the twenty two research papers contributed by erudite scholars in different parts of the country. The papers were presented in the National Seminar held at Santiniketan and organised jointly by Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla and Vishwa Bharati. This volume is bound to be an asset for those interested in the field of Buddhism." (jacket)