The ambivalent relationship of religions with fiction – their mistrust of its constitutive “make-believe” but also their interest for its power to spread beliefs – has often been highlighted; yet studies on this topic rarely take India into account, despite its being home to many religions and its extraordinary wealth of fictional works. The goal of this chapter is to show that in classical and medieval India the ties between fiction and belief were far more complex than is usually assumed, and to provide a glimpse of the subtle ways in which Indian thinkers have understood them. It points out in particular how Indian religions, while exploiting the pleasure induced by fiction to help propagate their moral and soteriological teachings, have weaponized story-telling in various ways against other religious groups, and often used the power of fiction to make us doubt rathen than to strengthen dogmas.