This volume aspires to be a handy reference work for users whose interest is not limited to one or two Indian language literatures but spreads over Sanskrit, Tamil, Pali and the Prakrit as well as to Asimiya, Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Sindhi, Telugu and Urdu. Starting with the vedas and the upanishads, the coverage spans several centuries up to the year 1850.