Aranyachari Buddha (Bengali Version)

📘 Book Details:

• Author: Bulu Imam

• Translator: Shantanu Bandopadhyay

• Language: Bengali

• Cover: Hardcover with Dust Jacket

📖 About the Book

When Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) and Mahavira were walking the paths of Eastern India, it was a time of intense socio-economic and political upheaval. The forest-dwelling (Araṇyaka) regions of eastern India had long sustained a proto-communist, nature-reliant worldview. But during this period, an aggressive influx began from the west—of agriculture, trade, warfare, and the accompanying proto-capitalist ideology.

With this came the Brahmanical religion, fire-worshippers backed by merchants and armed forces. Forests were cleared to make way for settlements, which grew into janapadas and then into powerful mahajanapadas. Against this tide of hierarchical ritualism and caste-based monarchy, the egalitarian spirit of the forest fought back—not just in primitive art and failed, bloody rebellions, but also through the creation of new spiritual movements.

These movements found voice through two of their greatest leaders: Buddha and Mahavira.

In Aranyachari Buddha, Bulu Imam, a distinguished researcher and cultural activist, compiles a lifetime of investigation into the hidden Buddhist past of Jharkhand. This Bengali translation of his seminal work "Buddhist Searches in Jharkhand" illuminates how the eastern tribal regions shaped and responded to India's most transformative spiritual revolutions.