A History of Intolerance: The Representation of Buddhists in the Bengal Puranas

Tolerance and intolerance are not natural faculties of the human mind. They have their own histories which find particular expression in specific spatio-temporal locations. In this essay, I wish to look critically at the claim that Hinduism, unlike the Semitic religions that seek to deny the right of other religious beliefs and practices to exist, is a tolerant religion which has invariably allowed space to all other religions.