For long, Indian Buddhist and Brahmanical religious institutions have generally
been studied from art-historical perspectives. This has resulted into a general
neglect of the contours of the vast functional matrices these institutions have
created or were parts thereof. Essays in this book attempt to explore the
functional roles of India Buddhist and Brahmanical religious institutions by
perceiving them as important constituents of the overall societal matrix: as
institutions in dynamic interactions with other societal institutions, acting
and reacting with them, influencing them and getting influenced by them in turn.
These institutions interacted with their socio-economic context in a variety of
ways. This book hope to be an endeavour