Nanocrystalline bismuth vanadate (n-BiV) powders with a crystallite size of <50 nm have been prepared, at room temperature, by subjecting a stoichiometric mixture of bismuth oxide and vanadium pentoxide to mechanical activation. The n-BiV powders show enhanced sinterability, in comparison to the conventionally prepared micrometer-sized bismuth vanadate (m-BiV) powders and yield ceramics with a uniform microstructure, High-density (similar to 98%) of the theoretical value), fine-grained (average grain size of similar to 2 mu m) ceramics, obtained using n-BiV have a high dielectric constant and a high pyroelectric coefficient and are associated with low dielectric loss, both at room temperature and at the transition temperature. These fine-grained ceramics show diffused phase transition and relaxer behavior, which are attributed to the irregular distribution of defects and/or compositional inhomogeneities in these ceramics. The fine-grained ceramics exhibit ferroelectric hysteresis loops with higher remanent polarization and lower coercive field values than the coarse-grained ceramics.