Religious Studies Review

VOLUME 36

NUMBER 2

JUNE 2010

reaction of religious traditions precisely with the social and political implications of such a Western modernity. This was a major theme explored in the global congress on The Worlds Religions after September 11, held in 2006. Presentations from this congress have been selected and edited, gathered into four volumes addressing, in turn, the subjects of Religion, War, and Peace, Religion and Human Rights, The Interfaith Dimension, and Spirituality. Each volume contains contributions by Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist scholars, each reexamining the tradition in the light of September eleventh. Signicant contributions come from immigrant ethnic communities in North America as well as from Islamic scholars in Turkey and Lebanon. Though difcult to summarize, these volumes mark the process of reassessing religion as both private and public, personal and political, that needs to be faced more fully in the West. A requirement for all libraries and for anyone interested in and examining the multiple relationships between religions and the political. Iain S. Maclean James Madison University

South Asia
JAINA EPISTEMOLOGY IN HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE. Edited and translated
by Piotr Balcerowicz. Second revised edition. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2008. Two volumes. Pp. xli + 548. 112. Rs. 1,595. This revised Indian edition of a study earlier published in Stuttgart (Franz Steiner Verlag, 2001; Alt- und NeuIndische Studien 53, 1 and 53, 2) is Indological philology of the highest caliber. Balcerowicz, a leading scholar of Jain philosophy, presents a critical edition and English translation of one of the foundational texts of Jain epistemology, ya vata ra (which he dates to between 620 Siddhasenas Nya and 800 CE), along with the rst commentary on it, Siddharsis early tenth-century CE Vivrti . His edition is based primarily on four manuscripts from Patan, as well as two previous printed versions. He includes in his notes portions of Devabhadras c. 1150 CE Tippana . Balcerowicz ya vata ra observes in his introduction that the Nya opens. . . a new era in the history of Jaina epistemology, because the author brings the theories of the Buddhists rti into Jain philosophy. At the same Dinnaga and Dharmak time, in terms of any contribution to the elds of logic and epistemology in India, more generally, the work seems to lose its avour of originality and novelty. Despite this caveat, this impressive publication is an important contribution to both Jain studies and the history of Indian philosophy. John E. Cort Denison University

AMERICAS SPIRITUAL UTOPIAS: THE QUEST FOR HEAVEN ON EARTH. By David Yount. Westport,
CT: Praeger, 2008. Pp. vii + 166. $44.95. In Americas Spiritual Utopias, D. Yount offers a descriptive look at a variety of utopian groups in American history. Readers are introduced to the beliefs and practices of communities such as Puritans, Quakers, Shakers, Oneida Perfectionists, Mormons, the Amish, and even the Catholic Worker Movement founded in the mid-twentieth century. Younts thorough examination of these individual groups serves to buttress his overall argument. Simply stated, he suggests that utopianism was the dening characteristic of American identity in the past and remains so today. In his words, the utopian vision has become, in American culture at least, a perennial quest to make the world better for all of us. Lamenting the rise of individual mobility and the decline of the community, Yount concludes the book by championing the return to, and mainstreaming of, a communal lifestyle that is grounded in an optimistic view of humanity and the world. Herein lies the weakness of his narrative. In an effort to make communal life sound appealing, he works hard to underscore the personal and social benets that come with ascribing to such a lifestyle. In doing so, he omits any discussion of the blatant conict and brutal violence that has accompanied the formation of many of these communities throughout history. This limitation notwithstanding, Yount provides an informative overview of American utopianism that serves as a good reference for those interested in the topic. For this reason, Americas Spiritual Utopias is a helpful piece of scholarship for casual and academic readers alike. Jonathan W. Olson Florida State University

TALES OF ATONEMENT. Edited and translated by Willem Bolle. Pandit Nathuram Premi Research Series, 28. Mumbai: Hindi Granth Karyalay, 2009. Pp. 112. Rs. 300. For much of its rst century, Western Indology was closely tied to comparative folklore studies, as scholars of Sanskrit and Prakrit in Europe and North America during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries focused on the great narrative texts of South Asia. This work was foundational for the eld of comparative folklore studies. In the twentieth century, Indological scholarship has moved away from this focus, but a handful of scholars have kept the eld alive. In this volume, Bolle, one of the leading scholars of Prakrit and Jain literature outside of India, presents narrative material rst collected by the Swiss Sanskritist E. Leumann (1859-1931) but never published. Bolle provides a meticulous critical edition and English translation of passages from the commentary of Malayagiri (thirteenth c. CE) veta mbara Jain canonical Vyavaha ra Su tra along on the S with its earlier commentarial levels of the Niryukti and ra is a mendicant discipline, and so, Bhasya . The Vyavaha as Bolle notes, not very lively. To illustrate the mendicant rules, therefore, the commentators (and, presumably, before them, the oral teachers) included hundreds of
166

Religious Studies Review

VOLUME 36

NUMBER 2

JUNE 2010

stories to illustrate the rules. The stories in these commentaries are part of the vast ocean of Indic stories preserved by the Jains. The rmly Indological style of the book makes it inappropriate for undergraduate students, but advanced students of Prakrit will appreciate the editorial comments and sixteen pages of glossary, while students of comparative folklore will benet from the translations themselves as well as the detailed motif index provided by Bolle. John E. Cort Denison University

ARDHAKATHANAK: A HALF STORY. Translated by Rohini Chowdhury. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2009. Pp. xlvi + 311. Rs. 350. nak was composed in 1641 in Agra by The Ardhakatha rs da s, a middle-aged merchant and lay Jain intellectual Bana tma spiritual movement. He was fty-ve leader of the Adhya at the time, half the theoretical life span of a person, and so titled his text A Half Story. This text is arguably the rst autobiography written in India and provides an invaluable picture of life in north India at the height of the Mughal empire. It has been translated once before, by Mukund Lath (Jaipur: Rajasthan Prakrit Bharati Sansthan, 1981; reprint New Delhi: Rupa, 2005). Lath rendered this text of 675 verses into a loose prose translation. Chowdhury has retranslated it into English free verse that reads very easily and, so, is accessible for the general audience intended by a Penguin Classic. Her translation is also more faithful to the original than was Laths. A preface by R. Snell and the translators introduction provide the reader with a useful frame rs da ss text, as his chosen work for understanding Bana s, by its very nature, genre of intermixed caupa s and doha can be cryptic at times, and he did not feel the need to provide his contemporary readers with explanations of what, presumably, they already knew. Any scholar who wants to nak will still need to refer to the much use the Ardhakatha more extensive and therefore invaluable introduction, notes, and appendices provided by Lath. Scholars will also, however, want to rely more on Chowdhurys translation. Penguin is to be complimented for providing the Braj thu ra m Prem s 1957 edition) on original (from Na Bhasa facing pages. John E. Cort Denison University THE OXFORD HINDUISM READER. Edited by Vasudha Dalmia and Heinrich von Steitencron. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. 397. Cloth, Rs. 650 (2007); paper, Rs. 570 (2009). The 2009 paperback issue of this book makes a valuable resource available for use in graduate and upper-level undergraduate seminars on religion in South Asia. Compiled from two earlier anthologies (Representing Hinduism: The Construction of Religious Traditions and National Identity, 1995; Charisma and Canon: Essays on the Religious
167

History of the Indian Subcontinent, 2001), with a new essay on women in Hindu nationalism, it presents excellent essays by fourteen leading scholars on South Asian religions and societies. At the heart of the book is a concern for the ways Hinduism has been constructed, in terms of religious authority in medieval times and then as a single religion over the past several centuries. Most of the authors are either European Indologists or South Asian Subalternists. The fruitful interaction allows Indologists to take greater cognizance of the connections of both historical ows and historicist scholarship with contemporary articulations of religion. It also allows Subalternists to pay closer attention to the ways that classical Indological scholarship has, for decades, laid the scholarly foundations necessary for addressing many of the social and political issues on the Subalternist agenda. Much scholarship on South Asian religion in recent years has had a pronounced presentist emphasis. The historically focused essays in this volume show clearly the continuities among the precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial periods, and what Dalmia, in her introduction, terms the earlier ancient and medieval multifarious traditions which would feed into the amalgam we know today as Hinduism. This is a book that deserves to be on the bookshelf ofand to be read byevery student of South Asian religion. John E. Cort Denison University

SELF-DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS? THE VISION AND PRACTICE OF THE SELF-STUDY MOBILIZATION OF SWADHYAY. By
Ananta Kumar Giri. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009. Pp. xiii + 318. $80.00. Swadhyaya is one of the least studied new religious movements that arose in the mid-twentieth century in the western states of India and now has a presence in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Middle Eastern countries, and some African countries. Surprisingly, only a few introductory articles have appeared so far; thus, this monograph by Giri is the rst serious study of Swadhyaya. Giri spent more than ten years in his eldwork in numerous sites in Gujarat, Maharashtra, and the United States, and offers a penetrating analysis of several features of this global movement. From his introductory rst two chapters, to his next three chapters based on his deeper study at the sites in Gujarat, to his last chapters on globalization and recent controversy within Swadhyaya, he covers a great deal of ground. The glossary provided at the end of the book with vernacular terms and their denitions will be helpful, because this list also includes new terms coined within Swadhyaya to describe their activities. As A. Appadurai states in his foreword to the book, Giris strength is to provide his readers direct access to those engaged in this movement. Rather than falling into either extreme of admiration or criticism, Giri sympathetically shows us both the vision and the practice of Swadhyaya, as noted in the title of the book. I

Religious Studies Review

VOLUME 36

NUMBER 2

JUNE 2010

have only two quibbles. First, the transliteration of Indian terms should have followed a standardized notation across the different chapters instead of the sometimes irregular spellings of the same words. Second, there are some typographical errors that could have been avoided by careful proofreading. Despite these minor glitches, the book will prove a useful resource on graduate-level courses on Hindu and other Asian religious movements. Pankaj Jain North Carolina State University

RDA S SINGS TO THE MEMORY OF LOVE: SU KRISHNA. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by
John Stratton Hawley. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. xx + 315. Cloth, $99.00; paper $24.95. This volume is the fruit of more than three decades of diligent study and analysis by Hawley of the Braj verses of the great sixteenth-century poet and Bhasa rda s. The full critical edition, translaKrishna devotee Su tion, and analysis by Hawley and K. Bryant of the poems r lived is that can be assigned to the century in which Su shortly forthcoming from the Oxford University Press, in rs Ocean. The volume under two volumes, with the title Su review presents a shorter selection of 141 poems along with 80 pages of extensive notes. All of the major themes of r corpus the early (and therefore closest to original) Su are here: the childhood pranks of Krishna; his love play s) of Braj; Krishnas departure from with the cowgirls (gop Braj and childhood to Mathura and adulthood to kill the evil King Kams ; the ever-popular bee messenger t) songs that detail the subsequent playful (bhramar-g s and back-and-forth dialogues between the lovelorn gop dho; Krishnas messenger, the hopelessly intellectual U descriptions of Krishna as Vishnu in his many lordly and ; poems in the majestic forms; episodes from the Ramayana vinaya genre, in which the poet praises the mercy of a Lord r; and three who would save such an ignorant sinner as Su hymns in praise of holy rivers. The notes are a gold mine of detailed information and close textual reading. The translations themselves are of the high lyrical standard we have come to expect from Hawley. All in all, this is a masterpiece that belongs on the bookshelf of every scholar and every lover of poetry. John E. Cort Denison University

practice. Jha ably demonstrates that these claims are stereotypes by means of copious historical evidence that contradicts them. Jhas argument is undermined, however, by his clear bias in the extreme opposite direction of Hindu nationalism, seeming at times to drift into a strident antiHinduism. He claims, for example, to oppose essentialist denitions of Hinduism. But rather than developing a nuanced, nonessentialist understanding of Hinduism arguing that the three stereotypes he opposes conceal a vastly more complex and multivalent realityhe opts for his own anti-Hindutva essentialism. He claims, in more than one place, for example, that Brahmanical traditions are inherently intolerant. It would appear that essentialism is only problematic if practiced by Hindu nationalists but is just ne if practiced by its critics. The chapter on the age of Hinduism also sits uneasily with the chapters on tolerance and the sacred cow, for if Hinduism did not exist until the nineteenth century, it is not clear how the ancient examples cited in the other two chapters are relevant to current Hindu practice, unless Jha rejects the argument of that chapter and, like the Hindu nationalists, afrms a continuity between contemporary Hinduism and practices of the distant past. Jeffery D. Long Elizabethtown College

RETHINKING HINDU IDENTITY. By D. N. Jha. London: Equinox, 2009. Pp. ix, 100. Paper, $85.00. In this provocative, thoroughly researched, and highly informative volume, Jha takes aim at three widespread positive stereotypes of Hinduism frequently circulated by members of the Hindu nationalist or Hindutva movement: that Hinduism is the oldest of the worlds religions, that it is a uniformly tolerant religion that does not proselytize, and that the sanctity of the cow is a cornerstone of Hindu

THE JAIN SAGA. Translated by Helen M. Johnson. Edited by Muni Samvegayashvijay. Ahmedabad: Acharyadev Shrimad Vijay Ramchandrasuriswarji Jain Pathashala (9 Siddhachal Vatika, Ramnagar, Sabarmati, Ahmedabad 380005), 2009. Three volumes. Pp. xlviii + 532; xxvi + 563; xxii + 604. Rs. 1,000. One of the great accomplishments of American Indology was the six-volume translation of Hemacandras by Helen M. Johnson, published Trisastisalakapurusacaritra between 1931 and 1962 in the Gaekwads Oriental Series. from the twelfth-century This encyclopedic Jain purana Caulukya court narrates the Jain universal history, by telling the biographies (caritra) of all sixty-three heroes ka purusa ). These include the twenty-four Jinas, (s ala twelve Cakravartins (universal emperors), and twentyseven other heroes. These biographies, many of which involve a long series of previous lives, allow Hemacandra to spell out the workings of karma in great detail. They also allow him to incorporate Jain versions of many of the wellknown stories from the ocean of South Asian narrative literature. Johnsons translation has long been unavailable but now is reprinted by a Jain religious organization in Ahmedabad. The editor provides a small list of emendations to Johnsons translation. He also, unfortunately, provides a short biography of someone other than the translator. It is equally unfortunate that the publisher decided to remove all diacritical marks from the translation. Nonetheless, this reprint is a welcome event, and it belongs in the libraries of all colleges and universities that
168

Religious Studies Review

VOLUME 36

NUMBER 2

JUNE 2010

teach about South Asia. Portions of the book are also available online at http://www.jaine.org/jainsaga. John E. Cort Denison University

THE TEACHINGS OF THE ODD-EYED ONE: A STUDY AND TRANSLATION OF THE , WITH THE COMMENVIRUPAKSAPANCASIKA CAKRAVARTIN. Translated with an TARY OF VIDYA
Introduction and Notes by David Peter Lawrence. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. Pp. xi + 195. Cloth, $60; paper, $21.95. (VAP), a text of fty-three The Virupaksapancasika verses, treats the Trika philosophy of self-recognition that seeks to elevate the awareness of the self to that of the iva by a process of deconstructing pheall-encompassing S nomenal self-identities. The rst chapter of the VAP introduces the concept that the true referent of the self and of the body is the totality. This comes with the rejection of the self-identities that are conditioned in corporeality, external entities, and mental constructs. The second chapter brings the concept of self-recognition to the fore by describing the emanation of the world as the ow of con iva. Emanation of the world is comsciousness identical to S pared here with phonemic expression. The third chapter expands the concept of the unitary nature of the self through analysis of grammatical persons, resulting in the a kta contheory of cosmic pulsation. This chapter brings S cepts to the front with the discourse on the sequence of aktis. The fourth chapter identies the levels of aspirants S in their progressive stages as they experience this totality as self-emanation. Lawrences effort to bring this text to light is praiseworthy, particularly for his ability to break opaque Sanskrit constructions into small, pellucid sentences that make the translation very readable and approachable to a wider audience. His use of notes to explain obscure passages and the comprehensive glossary demonstrate the depth of his scholarship and afford the reader a rich understanding of a vital text. Lawrence demonstrates his ingenious scholarship in the rst introductory chapters by expanding the discourse on self into the realm of contemporary psychoanalysis. The cursory analysis based on extensive research into the original text paves the path for future research in this direction. Sthaneshwar Timalsina San Diego State University

historical outline of Christianity in modern India, introduce critical theoretical issues such as enculturation and religious hybridity, and, at the same time, identify gures and themes signicant in the emergence of interreligious dialogue between the two faiths. The editorial voice is unmistakably Schoutens, this being more an ancilla than a sourcebook of primary textsbut for the most part, this provides a welcome consistency of theme and tone, with Schoutens extensive bibliography and notes making it possible for motivated readers to nd and access original sources for themselves. Schouten is sanguine about the role of Christianity in India and sometimes appears to take the possibilities of bidirectional dialogue as a given, which may sometimes result in less attention than is warranted to postcolonial Hindu positions critical of the possibility of massive power imbalances in the exchange. Nevertheless, the work is, on the whole, a valuable resource for ChristianHindu comparative theology whose omissions and enthusiasms can be easily remedied in a course by bringing in a few outside readings. P. J. Johnston University of Iowa

YOGA IN THE MODERN WORLD: CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES. Edited by Mark Singleton and
Jean Byrne. London and New York: Routledge, 2008. Pp. xii + 208. Cloth, $160.00; paper, $39.95. The editors of this volume claim that the essays aim to map the movement, development, and consolidation of yoga in global settings in the modern era. This implies a cohesion that this volume, like most such collections, lacks. Rather, we get three groups of essays on a very wide range of themes, loosely connected by a common focus on modern yoga. After a brief introduction to the emerging eld of modern yoga studies by the editors, the rst section contains three essays by three of the pioneers in this emerging eld. E. De Michelis provides a helpful but overly brief survey of the history of modern yoga; J. Alter presents a focused study of contemporary yoga camps in India; and S. Strauss discusses the role of Swami Sivananda in the creation of a transnational yoga. The second section, Posturing for Authenticity, contains two essays, Singletons critical examination of the role of Patajali and the Yoga Sutra in authorizing modern yoga, and K. Libermans discussion of the signicance of medieval traditions of hatha yoga for addressing the question of the authenticity of modern yoga. The third section, the longest and most eclectic, is entitled Spirituality, Sexuality, and Authority: Understanding the Experience of Contemporary Yoga Practice. Here, we nd essays on the ways the various contexts of yoga practice affect the practitioner (K. Nevrin), on the role of tapas and authority in the yoga of Pattabhi Jois (B. Smith), on the numinous and cessative in modern yoga (S. Sarbacker), and on sex and sexuality in contemporary yoga (M. Burley). More than a map, the essays in this volume are a

JESUS AS GURU: THE IMAGE OF CHRIST AMONG HINDUS AND CHRISTIANS IN INDIA. By Jan Peter
Schouten. New York: Rodopi, 2008. Pp. 324. Cloth, $99.20. Coupled with a packet of carefully selected primary sources, Schoutens work would make an ideal text for any course in comparative theology centering on Christian Hindu encounters in colonial and postcolonial India. By focusing on the representation of Jesus by inuential Hindu and Christian thinkers, Schouten is able to provide a basic

169

Religious Studies Review

VOLUME 36

NUMBER 2

JUNE 2010

sampler of work in an emerging eld. An adequate map remains a desideratum. David Carpenter Saint Josephs University

THE ZOROASTRIAN MYTH OF MIGRATION FROM IRAN AND SETTLEMENT IN THE INDIAN DIASPORA: TEXT, TRANSLATION AND ANALYSIS N, THE OF THE 16TH CENTURY QESSE-YE SANJA STORY OF SANJAN. By Alan Williams. Leiden, The
Netherlands: Brill, 2009. Pp. xii + 250. Hardback, $123.00. n (QS) is a poem in 432 verses, comThe Qesse-Ye Sanja posed in 1599, but found now almost entirely in English, Gujarati, and Urdu. The QS purports to give an early history of the Parsees of Western India, their defeat, exodus, revenge, and reconciliation with their past, including the strong emotions of loss and abandonment. The QS was penned by an Indian Parsee high priest (dastur) named d Sanja na from Navsa ri, Gujarat, writing Bahman Kay Qoba in a language that was not even his mother tongue. Williamss absorbing introduction to the text, its structure, and a synopsis of its contents (in which, e.g., a Zoroastrian warrior named Ardashir exacts revenge on a Muslim army that has already defeated the Hindus) is followed by a reproduction of a 1680 manuscript of the Persian text, and a transliteration and eminently readable free verse translation of the QS on facing pages. This is followed by Williamss commentary, which is nely attuned to linguistic, historical, geographical, and genealogical matters, and of the dasturs account of their religion. Williams closes the volume with chapters on the historiography of the text, his own corrections to its history, accounts of its different interpretations, and observations on this quasi-historical text as a mythological expression of triumph over adversity. This excellent volume is important for understanding not only the history of the Parsees and their quest for identity in a diasporic home, but also the dynamics of history, multiculturalism, and religious contact in premodern Western India. Frederick M. Smith University of Iowa

diagnostic and medicinal training to standardized medical college education and clinical trials. The book then considers global (European and American) Ayurveda with three foci: attention to secularized and scientic pharmacopeia; scholarly inquiry into Ayurveda through Indology and medical anthropology; and, perhaps most interesting, New Age Ayurveda, which emphasizes physical and spiritual wellness and healthy lifestyles. A number of chapters show that this form of Ayurveda has been commercialized and commodied for health and beauty, and is found at spas, health food stores, and cosmetics counters, both in the West and now increasingly among urban middle-class Indians. A number of writers (S. Newcombe, F. Jeannotat, and C. Humes) look specically at Maharishi Ayurveda (MAV), one offshoot of the Transcendental Meditation Movement begun by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and brought to wider attention (until 1993) by Deepak Chopra. The reader is shown how the TM organization has developed over time and has woven its view of Ayurveda into the movement overall. It claims that MAV can help create perfect health through Vedic science (including meditation, yogic asanas, diet, music, ritual, and astrology) and utilizes MAV clinics, remedies, and cosmetics to nancially support the organization. There are also interesting accounts of Ayurveda versus Tamil Siddha medicine (R. Weiss), R. Svoboda on the Ayurvedic diaspora and Ayurvedas contested status in both India and the West, and issues of sexual potency and control related to Ayurveda (J. Meulenbeld and J. Alter). The book covers a lot of territory, thus, at times, offering only impressionistic accounts, but it makes much new information available, and the introduction gives a clear overview. While this is a work primarily for scholars, graduate students, and research libraries, there is much of benet for them here. Andrew O. Fort Texas Christian University

THE BODY IN INDIA: RITUAL, TRANSGRESSION, PERFORMATIVITY. By Hsgb. von Christoph Wulf und
Axel Michaels. Paragrana 18/1. Berlin: Akademie Verlag GmbH, 2009. Pp. 323. N.p. This excellent collection of eighteen articles is divided into three groups. The rst, The Body in Religious and Philosophical Texts, has articles by F. Zimmermann (a philosophical and anthropological examination), C. Malamoud (on the meaning of skin as a body covering in the Vedic ritual), G. Colas (on gods, gods bodies, and images of gods), D. G. White (on the disjunction between possession and the formal construction of the body in Yoga), G. Flood (on the body as a locus for cosmic mapping in the Netra Tantra), F. Baldissera (on the meaning of bodily portrayals in Sanskrit satire), M. Pernau (on the view of the Indian body in Unani medicine), and A. Bhler (on the comportment of the body with its environment). The second part, The Body in Narratives and Ritual Performances, has articles by R. Freeman (theorizing untouchability, possession, Tantra, and Teyyam liturgy in Kerala), W. Sax (on the body of Bhairav and its

MODERN AND GLOBAL AYURVEDA: PLURALISM AND PARADIGMS. Edited by Dagmar Wujastyk and Frederick M. Smith. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. Pp. xiii + 349. Cloth: $89.50; paper: $29.95 A valuable and illuminating collection of essays examining how Ayurveda, Indias ancient indigenous medical system, has become a transnational and multicultural phenomenon. The editors introduction nicely lays out the books themes. First, it discusses Ayurveda in modern India. After being historically devalued by the West and Westernized Indians, Ayurveda has undergone professionalizing and institutionalizing processes, adapting it to Western allopathic biomedicine, as can be seen in the move from traditional individualized teacherstudent (guru-shisya)

170

Religious Studies Review

VOLUME 36

NUMBER 2

JUNE 2010

appearance in possession as revealed in song and liturgy), C. Schepnel (on embodied dance practice in Orissa), . Hsken (on the embodiment of ritual knowledge in South Indian Vaisnavism ), and S. John (on the sociocultural construction of the body in South Indian folk practices). The third part, The Body in Visualizations and Images, has articles by M. Juneja (on how visual representation helped dene the political body in early modern India), C. Brosius (on bridal attire and marriage performance as empowering and domesticating in modern India), R. Menon (on debates about nakedness and sensuousness in Indian art), and I. Clemens (on call centers as loci for reframing the human body in a time of globalization). This is very useful for graduate students and scholars. Frederick M. Smith University of Iowa

TRUE TO HER WORDS: THE FAITHFUL MAIDEN CULT IN THE LATE IMPERIAL CHINA. By Weijing
Lu. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008. Pp. 368, 6 tables, 16 gures, 5 illustrations, 2 maps. Cloth, $60. This book is the rst comprehensive study in the English language of late imperial (roughly the fourteenth through nineteenth centuries) young womens lifelong delity to and suicide in honor of their deceased ancs. The focus of the book is what Lu calls the cult of the faithful maidens (zhenn), and its merit lies in its multifaceted analyses of government policies, economic factors, ideological controversies, and cultural values on the macro-level and on literati debates, parental coercions, and the complex emotions of young women surrounding the cult on a microlevel. Lu demonstrates the complexity of the lives of faithful maidens. She also shows the shifts in the discourse about these women over the course of several centuries. For example, she points out that it was during the Late Ming, a culture fascinated with extreme moral acts and heroism, that the cult thrived. The promotion of faithful maidens became a convenient symbol of political loyalty to a state in crisis. Lu argues that during the early part of the Qing period, the promotion of faithful maidens took on an ethnic valence; more rewards were given to Manchu women than to Hans by a court eager to show the moral superiority of its own people. The court was eager to show the moral caliber of its own women. Literati debates surrounding the cult had also undergone signicant changes to emphasize social responsibility, family honor, and local pride. The strength of Lus detailed research lies in part two of the book, consisting of three chapters that focus on several case studies of faithful maiden suicides, spirit weddings, and extreme acts of self-maiming. Lu provides rich detail, drawn from different types of sources, of the lives of young women and the circumstances that led to their heroic acts. She tries to highlight the inner worlds of these women and their agency in making choices. However, there are inherent problems with using mostly maleauthored sources to accomplish this task. Lu does attempt to offset this problem by reading these gender-biased sources from different angles, between the lines and words, and in conjunction with faithful maidens own surviving works. Nevertheless, some of these works were still recorded by men. Lus portrayals of faithful maidens mentalities in performing various extreme acts are convincing, but more direct evidence would have strengthened her arguments. Lu also follows the literatis ideological distinction between faithful maidens and chaste widows. But was there really a hard line between these two categories of women in terms of the ways they lived their lives and were represented in the sources? Lu uses the term cult of faithful maiden throughout the book, but the category is never really explained. More discussion of the religious dimensions of these young womens lives would have also provided a more complete picture. Despite these small caveats, the book contributes signicantly to a more

East Asia
THE TEETH AND CLAWS OF THE BUDDHA: HEI IN JAPANESE MONASTIC WARRIORS AND SO HISTORY. By Mikael S. Adolphson. Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press, 2007. Pp. xviii + 212; gures, maps. $26.00. Adolphsons book offers a sophisticated yet accessible account of premodern Japanese warriors who were afliated with important Buddhist monastic centers. His primary aim is to situate these warriors within their proper historical and social contexts, while decrying the tendency of modern hei (literally scholars to anachronistically label them so monk-warrior). Adolphson argues that such gures had more in common with secular warriors than with Buddhist clergy, so it is wrong to call them monks. Further, Adolphson contends that premodern Japanese monastic warfare had less to do with Buddhist institutional developments than with the broader militarization of Japanese society. hei itself did not Finally, he demonstrates that the term so appear until the eighteenth century, as part of contemporary drives to standardize and stigmatize the image of the ghting monk as against new classes of powerful warlords. By and large, Adolphsons arguments here are convincing, and his sociohistorical contextualization of Japanese monastic violence sheds valuable light on the phenomenon. However, his insistence on the inseparability of secular and monastic warfare and warriors begs many questions about religious identity in premodern Japan. First and foremost, if we accept Adolphsons claims that these monastic warriors were not really monks, even if contemporary sources labeled them as such, then what exactly did it mean to be a monk in premodern Japan? And in general, Adolphson largely overlooks the religious dimensions of monastic violence in this study. Nevertheless, this is a truly fascinating book that deserves the close attention of any reader interested in Buddhism and war. Stuart H. Young Bucknell University

171