Buddhist Literature and Art: Collection of Articles from the Indian Historical Quarterly

Buddhist literature is amazingly vast. It has been produced at all points of time in ancient, medieval and modern times in India and outside all over the world. Buddhist literature can be classified time-wise, language-wise and country-wise. Unfortunately a large amount of ancient literature could not be preserved and has been lost in oblivion. Some of it has been lost in original but some of it is available in translations and can be retrieved. It will be a huge but highly significant task to restore the lost literature, but it should be attempted by world scholarship as it would be valuable asset to human culture. The basic Buddhist literature grew up on Indian soil in Pali and Sanskrit languages and has shaped the intellectual climate of India in ancient times. Soon it spread out to other Asian countries and reformed their psyche. In modern times Buddhist literature is being produced all over the world mostly in expository form. For the ancient literature there are several catalogues like that of Tanjore, Gilgit, Nanjio and some good bibliographic histories like that of Taranatha. A classified and comparative account of the entire Buddhist literature produced so far is a need of the times. It will be a gigantic work to be undertaken by a team of scholars. The Buddhist literature is mainly concerned with biographies of Sakya Muni, the Buddha, his previous births and future incarnations, the Bodhisattvas and their noble conduct, teachings of the Buddha, disciplinary codes for the Samgha, expositions of philosophical, epistemological, moral, religious and eschatological ideas, beliefs and practices. The Buddhist art occupies a very significant position in the totality of Indian art traditions. Though distinctive in ideas and thematic descriptions, it is in line with the general Indian art traditions. The Buddhist art went outside India alongwith the spread of Buddhism and it assumed newer forms in the countries of its locale. It is a remarkable event in world history to witness Buddhist art in variegated forms in the countries of Asia. For example, the Pagoda at Barabudur in Java, at Anuradhapuram in Ceylon and the Swayambhu Nath Temple in Nepal are artistic marvels which provide richness to world culture and civilisation.