Published in association with the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies. For the past 100 years, papers, books and periodicals in the field of Indological studies in Japan have increased enormously year by year in number and diversity of subject and methodology. However, these achievements by Japanese scholars have overwhelmingly been published in Japanese and, therefore, they have hardly been accessible to most Indian, European and American scholars. This tendency remains true even today. The present work in two volumes was planned for the purpose of rectifying the present situation even in some small measure. It consists of articles written by comparatively younger Japanese scholars who are at present actively engaged in the various fields of Indological studies and, in addition, selected bibliographies of Indological publications in Japan for the past 10 years from 1987 to 1997. The first volume contains 20 articles divided into two groups, I: Epic and Purana and II: Hindu Philospophical Traditions and may give readers a glimpse into the present tendency of Epic, Puranic, and philosophical studies in Japan.