Gautama, the Buddha, in his earthly career of some eighty-five years initiated a movement that profoundly affected the intellectual, religious and cultural history of India over a millennium. Though it disappeared from the land of its birth, it continues to be the conscience of large parts of Asia to the present day. Most of the works on Buddhism, and their numbers run into hundreds, largely treat it either as a system of philosophy or religion, or the inspiration behind countless works of art scattered across the Asian continent.

The fourteen essays included in this volume explore some hitherto neglected dimensions of the Buddhist revolution in the realm of social, economical and political thought. The essays cover topics ranging from ideas on society, economy, and political organization to aesthetics and religious mores. The last essay describes the state if Buddhism in its final phases during the Gupta age. The work is based on materials from the Buddhist Canonical and post-canonical literature and is a distinct contribution towards a new understanding of the place of some specifically Buddhist ideas in the cultural history of India.

Balkrishna Govind Gokhale has taught in colleges and universities for forty-eight years, fifteen in India and thirty-three in the United States. His interest in Pali literature and early Buddhism began in 1930s and has continued over half a century of research and publications on diverse aspects of Buddhist culture. His publication include fifteen books and over ninety papers published in journals in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Israel, the United States and Canada. He is now professor Emeritus of History and Asian studies at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA where he taught from 1960 to 1990.