Exploring the Depths of the Mystery of Christ: K. Subba Rao's Eclectic Praxis of Hindu Discipleship to Jesus – By H. L. Richard

60 Religious Studies Review Volume 32 Number 1 January 2006

STRUGGLE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE ByDavid Nelson Duke Tuscaloosa University ofAlabama Press 2003 Pp xvi + 305 $3995ISBN 0-8173-1246-3

Dukersquos portrait of Harry F Ward is a rigor-ous examination of an unbowed radical SocialGospeler Combining the ethics of Jesus withMarxian struggle Ward remained capitalismrsquosmost consistent critic for over half a centuryHis ldquopassionate solidarityrdquo with working peo-ple compelled Ward to work for the creation ofa just social order Settlement house workerprincipal architect of the ldquosocial creed of thechurchesrdquo (1908) defender of civil rights andliberties he labored to humanize economicsThe bookrsquos most impressive contributionfocuses on Wardrsquos differences with Niebuhrhis colleague at Union Theological SeminaryWhile both longed for the demise of predatorycapitalism Niebuhr eventually made peacewith American institutions By contrast Wardbecame increasingly estranged from the churchand American politics Placing his trust fora more equitable society in revolutionaryregimes Ward even went so far as to ignoreSoviet repression arguing that it was a naturalalbeit negative outcome Ultimately for mostAmericans Neibuhrrsquos Christian realism andflawed social order triumphed over Wardrsquos eth-ical humanism and socialist utopia To be sureDukersquos work is required reading for students oftwentieth-century American religion and thosewishing to better comprehend the theoreticalfoundation of the radical Social Gospel

A J Scopino JrCentral Connecticut State University

CHASING DOWN A RUMOR THEDEATH OF MAINLINE DENOMINA-TIONS By Robert Bacher and KennethInskeep Minneapolis MN Augsburg FortressPublishers 2005 Pp192 $1399 ISBN 0-8066-5142-3

Much like the exaggerated report on thedeath of Mark Twain the authors take issuewith the decade-old rumor that the Americanreligious mainline is dead or dying Whilemembership numbers have skidded downwardsince 1965 there is little justification for afuneral Quite the contrary claim Bacher andInskeep Accepting change as a given mainlinedenominations remain active navigatingthrough the waters of a postmodern society byoffering innovative solutions to new problemsMainline effort at sustaining community soargue the authors is to be applauded Howevermore work is needed to insure a successfulfuture Drawing upon the wealth of organiza-tional literature of energetic businesses theauthors conclude that if the mainline is tocontinue to flourish it will need to adoptbold strategies and exploit its resourcesRecommendations abound but unreservedemphasis is placed upon sustaining the main-linersquos commitment to community building as acounter to the pervasive individualism in soci-

ety today The work affirms the mainlinersquos trea-sured past offers new options for success andrecommends the forging of interdenomina-tional alliances all designed to benefit thebroader community Chasing Down a Rumor isa valuable resource for denominational leadersconcerned laity and students of contemporaryreligious sociology and history

A J Scopino JrCentral Connecticut State University

BAPTISTS IN AMERICA By Bill JLeonard New York Columbia UniversityPress 2005 Pp x + 316 $3500 ISBN 0-231-12702-2

Leonardrsquos survey of Baptists in Americafrom the colonial period to the present does aremarkable job of chronicling a very diversereligious tradition over a long period of timeThough scholars have come to expect suchwork from this leader in Baptist and religiousstudies this volume exceeds expectations froma book that covers so much territory Leonardably guides readers through the controversiesthat consumed each era in this nationrsquos historysuch as church and state relations the debateover evolution and the current deliberationabout gay and lesbian people In doing so hegives voice to a wide variety of voices from theleft right and middle-of-the-road Baptist pop-ulations And Leonard accomplishes this in avolume that will appeal to all audiences under-graduates and readers unfamiliar with Baptisthistory will gain a solid understanding of thistradition while scholars and experts in the fieldwill appreciate Leonardrsquos weighing in with ahistorianrsquos detached but critical eye on a num-ber of subjects It is frustratingly hard to findquality surveys of Americarsquos religious tradi-tions despite an obvious need for them Thank-fully Leonard and Columbia University Pressnow offer one such study about the Baptists inAmerica

David E SettjeConcordia University River Forest

South AsiaCHARISMA AND CANON ESSAYS ONTHE RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF THEINDIAN SUBCONTINENT Edited byVasudha Dalmia Angelika Malinar and MartinChristof New Delhi Oxford University Press2001 Pp ix + 461 pound2099 ISBN13 978-0-19-565453-0 ISBN 0-19-565-2536

This excellent collection of essays drawnfrom a conference in Tuumlbingen in 1997explores ldquothe relationship between the founda-tion of a religious community the formationsof canons and the various other devices whichmade it possible for these traditions to staketheir authorityrdquo The primary issue addressed ishow modern religious movements have linkedthemselves to older ones and appropriated them

as their own The volume has twenty-threepapers yet the topic is so potent that a coupleof more volumes could barely exhaust thematerial The papers cover a broad range ofIndian religious figures groups and topicsincluding to name just a few Ra=kara (Mali-nar) Madhva (Zyzenbos) the character ofthe Raiva Siddh5nta 5c5rya (Gengnagel)eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Pu iM5rg reforms (Dalmia) Sahaj5nanda andthe Swaminarayan movement (Schreiner) theD5d9panthi lineage (Horstmann) Day5nandrsquosdefense of his Vedic heritage (Cleacutementin-Ojha)the semantics of Gandhirsquos mahatmahood (DConrad) Ambedkarrsquos Buddhism (M Fuchs)the urban construction of Sathya Sai Babarsquos asan avatar (Smriti Srinivas) Athavalersquos religiousrevitalization in Swadhyaya (Dharmapal-Frick) an analysis of the term ldquocharismardquo andits application to possession priests and ldquogoddancersrdquo in Tu un5d (Bruumlckner) the problem ofcanonicity in the recent Shugden controversy inTibetan Buddhism that directly involved theDalai Lama (M von Bruumlck) and an analysis ofthe Vishva Hindu Parishadrsquos attempt to drawtogether various Hindu sects (Jaffrelot) Thereis much more than this however in this highlyrecommended volume

Frederick M SmithUniversity of Iowa

AS GOOD AS GOD THE GURU INGAU YA VAI AVISM By Maringns BrooAringbo Finland Aringbo Akademi University Press2003 Pp x + 308 $3495 ISBN 951-765-132-5 (digital 951-765-133-3)

This Ph D dissertation from Aringbo Univer-sity in Finland is replete with textual andmodern ethnographic data on the subject thatsubtitles the book The author a long-timeISKCON member (Bh gumani D5sa) beginshis account with r7 Caitanyarsquos initiation intothe use of a ten-syllable mantra in the year 1509by his guru rvara Pur7 Though this seemsrather simple the story quickly becomes com-plex with an ever-expanding catalogue of typesof gurus qualifications for becoming a guru indifferent lineages within Bengali Vai ava cir-cles (parivra and va ra) texts kinds or lev-els of initiation and mantras Among the textsdeployed are not just the well-known Hari-bhaktivilsa and Bhaktirasm tasindhu butmany other more specialized texts The centralproblematic to be resolved is the equation ofthe guru with God on the one hand but on theother the theistic notion that an individual soulcan never become God Eventually the authorconcludes that ldquoby himself the guru was a dev-otee of K a but that for his disciple he wasa manifestation of K ardquo The one minorproblem with the book is that it draws much ofits ethnographic material from ISKCON whichis at this point of very limited interest to schol-ars otherwise interested in this topic Neverthe-less this very good and instructive book shouldfind a larger audience than its present publisher

s t

l

D I S N

rS

snm

r

rsnrsn

Volume 32 Number 1 January 2006 Religious Studies Review 61

will be able to manage it is therefore hopedthat the author can find an Indian publisher forit soon


EXPLORING THE DEPTHS OF THEMYSTERY OF CHRIST K SUBBA RAOrsquoSECLECTIC PRAXIS OF HINDU DISCI-PLESHIP TO JESUS By H L RichardStudies in the Gospel Interface with IndianContexts Bangalore Centre for ContemporaryChristianity (international distribution httpmergingcurrentscom) 2005 Pp xiii + 219$1595 ISBN 8-190-22942-7

Kalagara Subba Rao (1912-81) was a radi-cal Hindu disciple of Christ who refused to bebaptized was very highly critical of the Chris-tian church and yet wrote songs of profounddevotion to the Christ whom he worshipped asdivine Guru Subba Raorsquos life and the continu-ing movement that he has inspired is rightlysaid by the author to ldquocomprise one of the mostfascinating chapters in the history of Christian-ity in Indiardquo Three introductory chapters placethe discussion in the contexts of contemporaryHindu identity and Indian Christianity (and alongish appendix also sets it within the contextof postorientalism) The longest chapter in thebook (some 60 pages) contains a valuable andcarefully compiled critical translation intoEnglish of the 34 Telegu songs Subba Rao com-posedmdashsongs or hymns that are still sung byhis followers and that compose the center of thebeliefs and practices of his followers anotherappendix provides a detailed thematic indexto these songs A further chapter then offers asympathetic but not uncritical appraisal ofSubba Rao and his continuing significanceThis is a well-researched well-documented andfluently written volume that draws upon andeffectively replaces a number of earlier studies

Bob RobinsonTyndale Graduate School of Theology

THE LIVING AND THE DEAD SOCIALDIMENSIONS OF DEATH IN SOUTHASIAN RELIGIONS Edited by Liz WilsonAlbany NY State University of New YorkPress 2003 Pp 212 $2295 ISBN 0-7914-5678-1

This illuminating volume contains eightarticles plus an introduction The articles arethe following David White on the alchemicalprocesses of calcinations regeneration andsymbolic rebirth among Rasa Siddhas and NthSiddhas Wilson on autocremation or voluntaryself-cremation among early South AsianBuddhists many as a response to the passingof the Buddha himself David Knipe on them9sivyanam (Telugu) a womanrsquos funerary rit-ual in which a deceased wife who died beforeher husband (an auspicious death) possesses afemale ritualist as the goddess Gaur7 en routeto her final abode (Knipe speculates that suchrituals were once more widespread on the sub-continent) Ricard Wolf on music and mourning

among the Kota of the Nilgiris and Sh7rsquo7 Mus-lims of South Asia noting the overall affectiveimpact and the culturally configured emotionalresponses to the music Jonathan Walters onnecromancy and changing ldquonecrotechnologiesrdquoamong the Buddhists of Sri Lanka GregorySchopen on desecration of st9pas by rivalmonks and nuns in the P5li Vinaya texts thesubstitution of st9pas with easily ldquomurderedrdquovegetables (radishes) and ritual death IsabelleNabokov on a Tamil countersorcery ritual(ka ippu) in which the victim of sorcery expe-riences a symbolic rebirth as a result of theritual performance and Peter Gottschalk onHindu and Muslim intercommunal cooperationin rituals of healing by the dead in certain Mus-lim darghs In many of these discussions thusthe death is social or ritual This volume wouldbe very good in graduate seminars not only arethe articles all excellent but the differentapproachesmdashtextual historical religious stud-ies and anthropologicalmdashshould provideample opportunity for profitable discussion


HINDU ICONOCLASTS RANMOHUNROY DAYANANDA SARASVATI ANDNINETEENTH CENTURY POLEMICSAGAINST IDOLATRY By Noel SalmondEditions SR volume 28 Waterloo CanadaWilfrid Laurier University Press 2004 Pp ix+ 172 $4495 ISBN 0-88920-419-5

This is a compact yet wide-ranging studyof Ranmohun Royrsquos and Dayananda Sarasvatirsquosantipathy to Indian iconic ritualism Salmondfirst examines this issue from the standpoint ofthe general dimensions of image rejection andthe history of image worship in India and thendelves into the specific positions put forthregarding image worship in Ranmohunrsquos andDayanandarsquos writings The study is fleshed outwith brief histories of their lives (includingsome armchair psychoanalysis of key eventsfrom their early years) a look at their placewithin the larger sphere of nineteenth-centuryIndia in which the British disparagement ofBrahminic Hinduism loomed large and finallyan assessment of Ranmohunrsquos and Dayanandarsquosinfluence evaluated within the framework ofthe larger question of iconoclasm in the historyof religions In the bookrsquos early chaptersSalmond overemphasizes the question of theorigins of Ranmohunrsquos and Dayanandarsquos antip-athy toward image rejection and overstates thesignificance of their antipathy to image worshipwithin their overall programs of reform In thefinal chapter however Salmond delivers amore nuanced view of the catalysts underlyingtheir iconoclasm looking to a complex offactors Muslim and Protestant ideologies(strongly tinged by nineteenth-century Britishpriggishness) as well as the Vedic revisionismand the tremendous intellectual depth of boththese men Graduate students and advancedundergraduate students will find considerable

lmacr

food for thought in Salmondrsquos book Despite aslight tendency to cite some outdated sources(eg J Farquhar 20-21 W Koppers 120)Salmond covers with admirable concision arange of topics critical to the study of modernIndia as well as to the history of religions ingeneral

Herman TullPrinceton University

SIKHS AND SIKHISM COMPRISINGGURU NANAK AND THE SIKH RELI-GION EARLY SIKH TRADITION THEEVOLUTION OF THE SIKH COMMU-NITY AND WHO IS A SIKH By W HMcLeod Delhi Oxford University Press 2004[1999] Pp 843 $2995 ISBN13 978-0-19-566842-6 ISBN 0-19-566892-6

This volume is a recent addition to OUPIndiarsquos Omnibus collection in which many ofthe important works of contemporary scholarshave been collected in a single large volumeAmong the scholars whose works appear in thisseries are for example Patrick Olivelle Ram-achandra Guha Bernard Cohn and RomilaThapar McLeod the well-known scholar ofSikhism from New Zealand has written prolif-ically on Sikh history and culture for fortyyears His books presented here are the follow-ing in order of appearance Guru Nanak andThe Sikh Religion (1968 based on McLeodrsquosPhD dissertation from the University of Lon-don 1965) Early Sikh Tradition (1980) TheEvolution of the Sikh Community (1976) andWho Is a Sikh (1989) Despite methodologicaladvances in Sikh studies McLeod remainsmandatory reading in the field as his knowl-edge of Sikh Panjabi poetry and scripturepolitics and identity formation history andhistoriography and details of the Sikh Panthshould be read by the present generation ofSikh scholars In addition scholars of otherbranches of Indian religion ought to familiarizethemselves with his oeuvre


BEYOND LINES OF CONTROL PER-FORMANCE AND POLITICS ON THEDISPUTED BORDERS OF LADAKHINDIA By Ravina Aggarwal Durham NCDuke University Press 2004 Pp ix + 305Cloth $8495 ISBN 0-8223-3428-3 paper$2395 ISBN 0-8223-3414-3

Aggarwal enthusiastically succeeds here inproving that ldquothe Tibetan model is inadequatefor addressing modern Ladakhrdquo by bringingit out of the realm of Tibetan Buddhist Studiessimpliciter and into a fully contextualized viewBeyond Lines of Control examines public per-formance in Ladakh as the site of contentionbetween East and South Asia India and Paki-stan Indian and Ladakhi Buddhist and Mus-lim privileged and outcaste tradition andmodernity etc as these intersect repeatedly invarious forums Aggarwal shows how perfor-mance repeatedly both enforces and subordi-


nates control and defines and crossesboundaries between these categories Theengaging and entertaining ethnography is han-dled adeptly in the face of the notoriously dif-ficult Ladakhi dialect and while the transitionsfrom ethnographic to more theoretical passagesare sometimes stylistically abrupt the connec-tions between Aggarwalrsquos field research andconclusions are seamless The importance ofborder performance in and beyond such dis-parate areas as film military parade funeralarchery and daily village life in WesternLadakh is clearly connected and convincinglyproven This important book will uniquelyinform those studying South Asia religionand nationalism Buddhism Islam or thenature of identity Those familiar with Ladakhwill also find much of its history given theparticularized treatment it has long deserved

Christian HaskettUniversity of Wisconsin Madison

NECTAR GAZE AND POISON BREATHAN ANALYSIS AND TRANSLATION OFTHE RAJASTHANI ORAL NARRATIVEOF DEVNAR YAN By Aditya Malik NewYork Oxford University Press 2005 Pp xxv+ 548 $7400 ISBN 0-19-515019-3

Malikrsquos massive undertaking has resultedin a fine versified translation of the well-known Marwari oral epic dedicated toDevnar5yan His translation is based on aseries of performances sung by HukamaramBhopa over a period of ten days resulting intwenty-four hours of narrative Malik prefacesthe translation with an extended meditation onthe narrativersquos context its verbal visual tex-tual historical and social dimensions Thisbook complements Malikrsquos 2003 publicationin which he first presented the text in the orig-inal Marwari dialect It will be of great inter-est to South Asian folklorists who havefocused much attention on oral epics over thepast twenty years But it will also be of valueto anthropologists linguists and historians ofreligion for what it teaches us about the localculture of the region

Frank J KoromBoston University

KABIR ECSTATIC POEMS By Robert BlyBoston MA Beacon Press 2004 Pp xx + 104$1600 ISBN 0-8070-6384-3

For many of us our first introduction to thepoetry of Kabir in a voice that spoke to us wasRobert Blyrsquos 1977 volume of ldquotranslations fromthe Englishrdquo copublished by Beacon and Blyrsquosown Seventies Press as The Kabir Book Thesewere versions in a contemporary Americanidiom rescued from the 1917 ldquotranslationsrdquo byTagore assisted by Underhill translations Blyrightly termed as ldquohopelessrdquo in their dated trea-cly English Blyrsquos versions were very much ofa piece with their period the 1960s and 1970sKabir represented a major voice in the ldquoturningeastrdquo of many Americans and Europeans In

A

Blyrsquos hands Kabir was enlisted into the poeticrebellion against the staid academic poetry ofthe day the poetry of elite Boston Brahminsand tenured college professors Bly alsoenlisted Kabir into the social and culturalupheavals of the time as he positioned Kabirwithin a long tradition of personal ecstatic andantiauthoritarian poetry ldquohighly religious andintensely spiritual poems written outside ofand in opposition to the standard HinduMohammedan or Christian dogmasrdquo In myfiles I have reviews of the book from Liberationand Win two important political countercul-tural magazines of the day and the coverincludes a blurb from Rolling Stone then avibrant countercultural voice Lines like ldquoIlaugh when I hear that the fish in the water isnot thirstyrdquo and ldquoIf you find nothing now youwill simply end up with an apartment in theCity of Deathrdquo spoke with a directness andurgency lacking in establishment poetry reli-gion and culture J S Hawley in his afterwordldquoKabir and the Transcendental Blyrdquo providesan overview of the extensive scholarship onKabir of the past two decades He shows howBlyrsquos Kabir represents just a thin sliver of themultiple Kabirs analyzed and translated by ahost of scholars As Hawley observes in Blyrsquosversion ldquowhat emerges is a Kabir who standsfor self-reliance (like Emerson) principled dis-obedience (like Thoreau) and a set of practicesthat honors the meeting of mind and body andcelebrates the intense emotions that connectthem (like Bly himself)rdquo Hawley shows usjust how American Blyrsquos Kabir is For teachingKabir I will continue to use the translations ofL Hess V Dharwadker and J Hawley and MJurgensmeyer But Blyrsquos Kabir here reissuedwith ten new ldquotranslationsrdquo will retain animportant place on my bookshelf of essentialtexts of contemporary American religiouspoetry

John E CortDenison University

MIRABAI ECSTATIC POEMS By RobertBly and Jane Hirshfield Boston MA BeaconPress 2004 Pp xvi + 103 $1600 ISBN 0-8070-6386-X

A poet has attained status within the canonwhen she is translated afresh for each genera-tion and even multiple times within a singlegeneration The sixteenth-century north Indiandevotional singer-saint Mirabai has receivedthis confirmation The current volume presentsfifty English versions by two highly esteemedcontemporary American poets (A seriouslacuna of the volume is the lack of any indica-tion of the originals from which these ldquotransla-tions from the Englishrdquo were derived) Bly andHirshfield are among the best translators work-ing today In addition each has publishedanthologies of global spiritual poetry inEnglish Bly turned to bringing Mira across intoEnglish soon after his earlier work on Kabirand published versions of some of these poems

in small press sources such as the six poems inthe chapbook Mirabai Versions published byRed Ozier Press in 1980 J Hawleyrsquos afterwordprovides a valuable overview of scholarlyviews on Mirabai He evinces some of the anx-iety that historically and philologically orientedscholars might feel when confronting the liber-ties Bly and Hirshfield have taken to makeMirabai fresh to make her speak to a contem-porary American audience But he also recog-nizes that in the absence of any corpus of poemsthat can undeniably be attributed to a flesh andblood woman named Mirabai all we reallyhave are five centuries of interpretive revision-ings of what he terms the ldquocloudrdquo of Mirabaipoetry by bhakti theologians Rajput histori-ans Dalit singers nationalist literary scholarsBollywood directors contemporary classicalsingers comic book publishers and a LosAngeles conference on globalization TheMirabai versions of Bly and Hirshfield furtherexpand the number of Mirabais and providematerial for reflection on the processes of trans-lation and cultural transmission They also pro-vide fine poetry in English which shoulddelight all readers


FIRST STEPS IN VEDANTA VEDANTICTEXTS FOR BEGINNERS SAD NANDArsquoSVED NTAS RA BALADEVArsquoS PRAM-EYA-RATN VAL AND A BRIEF OVER-VIEW OF ADVAITA VEDANTA BYDINESH CHANDRA BHATTACHARYASHASTRI Translated introduced and anno-tated by Neal Delmonico New York GlobalScholarly Publications 2003 Pp lxxvi + 212$2495 ISBN 1-59267-010-5

This book offers an introduction to and anannotated translation of brief and well-knownldquoprimersrdquo of two important schools of VedantaThe first Sad5nandarsquos Vedntasra (ldquoEssenceof Vedantardquo) introduces nondualist Advaitaand the second Baladeva Vidy5bh9 a arsquosPrameya-ratnval7 (ldquoNecklace of Truth-Jewelsrdquo) presents the Krishna-focusedldquoinconceivable difference-and-nondifferencerdquo(Acintyabhed5bheda) This is an interestingjuxtaposition of texts and ideas Delmonico isa skilled redactor and he provides a helpfulintroduction to and synopses of both texts Hefirst describes the development of Advaita andincludes some of his own philosophical viewstied at times to modern scientific and psycho-logical theories He then presents useful back-ground about Gau 7ya Vai avism makesinteresting remarks on the possibility thatBaladeva was a vairya and contrasts his viewswith the M5dhva tradition The translationswith Sanskrit and English on facing pages areclear and consistent if not always inspired withvery helpful footnotes and show the authorrsquosdeep understanding of the texts BhattacharyaSastrirsquos overview of Advaita offers a usefulindigenous voice and solid traditional under-

AA A

A I

s n

d sn


standing of basic topics but is not unique orparticularly insightful Appropriate for upper-level seminars in Indian thought and mostlibraries

Andrew O FortTexas Christian University

DIVINE MOTHER BLESSED MOTHERHINDU GODDESSES AND THE VIRGINMARY By Francis X Clooney SJ New YorkOxford University Press 2005 Pp xiv + 264$4995 ISBN 0-19-517037-7

In this book Indologist and comparativetheologian Clooney seeks to bring the study ofHindu goddesses into the wider conversationabout gender and the divine in contemporaryChristian theology To that end he providescomplete translations of three classical Hindugoddess hymns two in Sanskrit one in TamilAt the same time he reflects theologically onthese hymns in light of three hymns to the VirginMary a choice that reflects Clooneyrsquos view thatthe Marian traditions provide a fruitful entrypoint into the religious worlds of Hindu goddessworship As with Clooneyrsquos previous exercisesin comparative theology this volume empha-sizes the performative dimension of the readingof religious texts a method that discourages theexpectation that comparative study must issueeither in definitive comparative conclusions orin dramatic reappraisals of onersquos previous reli-gious commitments Clooneyrsquos latest attempt tocombine feminist critique interreligious com-parison and Catholic orthodoxy however willsurely test this methodrsquos capacity to defer anddefuse controversy Nevertheless DivineMother Blessed Mother makes a unique andvaluable contribution to contemporary theolog-ical discussion On one level it makes threeoutstanding Hindu texts accessible to a widertheological audience in translations that capturemuch of the aesthetic beauty and religiouspower of the originals More importantly itdemonstrates how judicious comparison canstimulate fresh reflection on the issue of genderand the divine without compromising Christiantheological commitment

Hugh NicholsonCoe College

HINDU NATIONALISM AND THE LAN-GUAGE OF POLITICS IN LATE COLO-NIAL INDIA By William Gould CambridgeStudies in Indian History and Society 11 Cam-bridge Cambridge University Press 2004 Ppxvi + 302 $7500 ISBN 0-521-83061-3

With extreme care Gould marshals a sub-stantial amount of evidence to demonstrate thatthe Indian National Congress in the UnitedProvinces (later the state of Uttar Pradesh)widely employed the languages of HinduNationalism in the 1930s and thereby estab-lished the grounds for Muslim estrangementfrom the Congress Gould patiently undercutsthe standard reading of nationalism in the latecolonial period that pits the secularist Congressagainst the voices of Hindu nationalism by

exposing the depth of involvement by Congressofficials in Hindu organizations such as theArya Samaj and their widespread use of Hinduidiom at the regional level Gould plumbs thedivergent meanings of ldquosecularismrdquo and arguesthat by invoking Hindu tolerance as the princi-pal of a secular state regional Congress leadersundercut the national organizationrsquos aims todistance itself from religious ideologies andthese strategies to engage local populationseffectively constructed the idea of an indepen-dent India as an essentially Hindu nationthereby alienating Muslim support Examiningsuch charged nationalist movements as clothhartals untouchable uplift and cow protectionGould shows how in the 1930s Congressestablished itself as an organization orientedtoward the concerns of its Hindu constituentsBy the 1940s it was unable to shed this repu-tation and invite the rejection of a large sectorof Indian Muslims The book consists largelyof close analyses of archival materials relatedto regional events and politicians It presumesa substantial background in the history of theIndependence movement and is thereforeappropriate for specialists only

Brian K PenningtonMaryville College

GENDER CASTE AND RELIGIOUSIDENTITIES RESTRUCTURING CLASSIN COLONIAL PUNJAB By Anshu Mal-hotra New Delhi Oxford University Press2002 Pp xii + 231 Cloth $4500 ISBN 0-19-565648-2 paper $1915 ISBN 0-19-567240-2

This book examines how the complex inter-play among ideas about caste status and theroles of women contributed to the evolution ofdistinct Hindu and Sikh middle classes in colo-nial Punjab Malhotra demonstrates that bothorthodox religious leaders and reformersldquomodernizedrdquo by controlling womenrsquos sexual-ity Newspapers tracts novels and folk poetryprovide her with the material to demonstratehow through the regulation of womenrsquos conductand the restriction of their roles some castegroups acquired an upward mobility by adoptinghigh caste practices that the colonial govern-ment regarded and rewarded as marks of indig-enous social leadership By channeling thesurplus sexuality and labor of widows into thework of nation building condemning femaleinfanticide and promoting marriages based ondowry rather than bride-pricemdasha practice whichthey styled as the ldquosellingrdquo of girlsmdashcaste lead-ers could participate in an egalitarian rhetoricwhile tightening controls over their women Aheightened emphasis on the ideal of thepativrat meant intensified domestic labor forwives and their isolation from lower castes thathad formerly performed much menial labor Thesuppression of womenrsquos popular religiosity fur-ther prevented their mixing with lower castesand members of other religious communitiesthereby drawing the lines between caste groupsas well as Sikhs and Hindus more starkly This

book proposes no methodological or theoreticalinnovations but displays a careful and rigorousexamination of the archive to mount a quiteconvincing argument about transformations incaste and community in this particular regionof colonial India


DIASPORA OF THE GODS MODERNHINDU TEMPLES IN AN URBANMIDDLE-CLASS WORLD By JoannePunzo Waghorne New York Oxford UniversityPress 2004 Pp xviii + 292 Cloth $7400ISBN 0-19-515663-3 paper $2495 ISBN 0-19-515664-1

For the past several decades the inadequa-cies of the 1950s and 1960s area studies modelhave been becoming more and more obviousWhile it originally allowed great strides for-ward in understanding areas such as South Asiathrough interdisciplinary studies this modelencouraged an intellectual ghettoization anda deemphasis on connections between andamong regions World systems globalizationand postcolonial theories have shown thatrestricting onersquos study to areas such as ldquoIndiardquoor ldquoSouth Asiardquo leaves out crucial larger flowsof economics power culture and religionEqually important the migration of millions ofpeople from the industrializing South to theindustrial (and increasingly postindustrial)North coupled with dramatic changes in thetechnologies of transportation and communica-tion mean that the older area boundaries are nolonger adequate to understand the contempo-rary world Waghornersquos study of Tamil Hindutemples in Madras now Chennai in the seven-teenth to twenty-first centuries and the morerecent phenomenon of Tamil Hindu temples inNorth America and the United Kingdom con-vincingly incorporates these new theoreticalperspectives to show how temples are central tothe culture and society of Tamil Hindus Wag-horne also eschews a focus on the grand medi-eval temple cities with their royal patronswhich have been the focus of much past schol-arship on Hindu temples in favor of morerecent urban temples whose patrons come fromthe middle classesmdashmerchants in the seven-teenth to nineteenth centuries and now increas-ingly professional engineers doctors andbureaucrats These temples at once look backto the traditions of classical temple architectureand adapt those traditions to modern tastes andfunctional needs There have been too few stud-ies of middle-class Indian religiosity but thehundreds of millions of middle-class Hindus inIndia and tens of millions of middle-class Hin-dus outside India are defining and redefiningthe Hindu tradition(s) in dynamic and manifoldways Waghornersquos book marks an importantnew direction for the study of religion in andfrom South Asia



FEMALE ASCETICS IN HINDUISM ByLynn Teskey Denton Albany NY SUNYPress 2004 Pp ix + 218 Cloth $6550 ISBN0-7914-6179-3 paper 2195 ISBN 0-7914-6180-7

This posthumously published book dealswith women mendicants in the sacred city ofBanaras Although other significant publica-tions on the topic have been published this slimvolume is a welcome contribution to the litera-ture Dentonrsquos book is solidly grounded in eth-nographic fieldwork both among renunciantsand householders thereby enabling her toexplore the old Dumontian tension betweenasceticism and domesticity Being a collectionof essays and lectures rather than an intention-ally structured book results in some uneven-ness However S Collins who also contributesa foreword has provided a useful service to thefield by editing the chapters to eliminate asmany redundancies as possible M Khandel-wal whose own book on the subject wasreleased in 2004 has also contributed anaccompanying bibliography This book wouldwork well in undergraduate classes on asceti-cism or Hinduism


East AsiaCHINESE POETRY AND PROPHECYTHE WRITTEN ORACLE IN EAST ASIABy Michel Strickmann Edited by BernardFaure Stanford CA Stanford University Press2005 Pp 218 $2495 ISBN 0-8047-4335-5

Strickmann (1942-94) a noted scholar ofChinese religions left several unfinishedFrench manuscripts Faure himself an expert inthese subjects has been conscientiously shep-herding English versions into print Like otherpopular French monographs this bookrsquos styleis more sweeping than most academic tomesStrickmannrsquos introduction scathingly indictswestern sinology (and American society morebroadly) for methodological errors such aspresuming incongruent ldquopopularrdquo and ldquoeliterdquotraditions in Chinese culture consequentlyneglecting important phenomena like ldquotempleoraclesrdquomdashwritten texts used in a ritual wherebya questioner seeks divine guidance as by con-sulting the I ching or Tarot cards In fact Strick-mannrsquos analysis is not confined to East Asianldquonumeromantic textsrdquo (like the Ling-chrsquoi chingand various Taoist materials) but extends toBuddhist Islamic and Western contexts Hemaintains that ldquothe similarities among manticsystems in different cultures are patent andundeniablerdquo and that the similarities are notcoincidental The Chinese mantic systemsmeanwhile were ldquoa product of the greatermovement from revelation to routinerdquo ldquoFromthe early Middle Ages on Buddhism Taoism

and the secular administration all directed theirefforts to the containment of native spiritualenthusiasm by establishing set forms forritualrdquo Though rambling this provocative andwell-documented work will interest many

Russell KirklandUniversity of Georgia

A COMPANION TO ANGUS C GRA-HAMrsquoS CHUANG TZU By Harold D RothHonolulu University of Hawairsquoi Press 2003Pp 241 $1800 ISBN 0-8248-2643-4

A reprint of five scholarly articles onChuang-tzu by Graham (1919-91) with a forty-page ldquocolophonrdquo by Roth The first chaptercomprises ldquoTextual Notesrdquo intended for publi-cation in Grahamrsquos 1981 translation of theChuang-tzu Specialists will value them andthe related articles though most chaptersexpect expertise in classical Chinese Rothrsquosldquocolophonrdquo both explains Grahamrsquos methodsand offers ldquoanswers to a number of questionsthat Grahamrsquos research raised but did notanswerrdquo including plausible conjecturesregarding the early textual history of theChuang-tzu Nonspecialists will appreciatechapter 4 ldquoTwo Notes on the Translation ofTaoist Classicsrdquo Graham compares selectedtranslations of the Chuang-tzu and Lao-tzu withthe original texts and finds passages where thetranslators succumb to ldquoRambling Moderdquomdashldquomeandering from sentence to sentence withoutany sense of directionrdquo This ldquotranslatorrsquosEnglishrdquo leaves readers ldquoa little overawed likethe Bible reader who where the King Jamesversion loses the thread of the Hebrew or Greeksupposes that God said something too deepfor his present understandingrdquo This exposeacuteof the ldquoTaoist Englishrdquo by which westernershave learned the ldquoOriental Wisdomrdquo reputedlyexpressed in ldquothe Taoist classicsrdquo is itself worththe price of the book


CHIKUBUSHIMA DEPLOYING THESACRED ARTS IN MOMOYAMA JAPANBy Andrew M Watsky Seattle University ofWashington Press 2004 Pp 368 150 illus$4500 ISBN 0-295-98327-2

This book is the first book-length study inEnglish about Chikubushima the sacredldquoBamboo Grove Islandrdquo located on Lake BiwaWhile best known as one of the thirty-threeSaikoku pilgrimage temples to the popularbodhisattva Kannon it was a major center forworshipping the powerful protector GoddessBenzaiten Watskyrsquos study is a sophisticatedart-historical analysis of the islandrsquos Benzaiten(or Tsukubushima) Main Hall which hedescribes as the ldquomost important though leastwell understood Momoyama buildingsrdquo Thegoal of this lavished illustrated (with sixty-fourcolor plates) volume is to correct the bias of arthistorians who have typified the art of this era

as ldquopredominantly secularrdquo By overlooking thereligious aura of buildings like the Main Hallthey have ldquolimited if not distortedrdquo the analysisof Momoyama art Much of this book illustrateshow this building exemplifies the notion ofshocircgen the use of ornament to proclaim andcelebrate the sacred It is a rich analysis of therole of political power patronage and personalpiety in the development of Chikubushimarsquossacred architecture a story that Watsky arguesis closely tied to the fortunes of the Toyotomihouse Watskyrsquos thesis is that what looks likesecular motifs in the Main Hall are in factldquonuminous referencesrdquo to the Pure Land andspeculates that the core of the building pointsto its original function as a mortuary hall(tamaya) possibly for the Sutemaru Hidey-oshirsquos first born son and heir In sum this is anexciting piece of interdisciplinary research intoMomoyama art religion and politics that ishighly recommended

Mark MacWilliamsStLawrence University

INVESTING IN MIRACLES EL SHAD-DAI AND THE TRANSFORMATION OFPOPULAR CATHOLICISM IN THE PHIL-IPPINES By Katherine L Wiegele SoutheastAsia Politics Meaning and Memory 4 Hono-lulu University of Hawairsquoi Press 2005 Pp xi+ 207 Cloth $5000 ISBN 0-8248-2795-3paper $2100 ISBN 0-8248-2861-5

Of all the rapidly growing Christian move-ments in the global south few have provenmore difficult for scholars to study sympathet-ically in their own terms than those associatedwith the prosperity gospel Indeed Wiegelersquosstudy of El Shaddai is the first account I haveseen that helps us understand what such amovement looks like to its followers El Shad-dai is noteworthy not only for its size (withroughly 10 million followers it stands out evenin a field in which giantism is the norm) butalso for the fact that it is the only prosperitygospel movement that has been able to affiliateitself officially with the Catholic ChurchWiegele tells us how the movement developedthese characteristics but her main focus is onhow its prosperity gospel shapes the outlooksof its members Her key finding is that follow-ers do not so much even take steps towardbecoming richmdashfew really domdashas they learn toreinterpret their lives focusing on the goodthings that do happen to them and learning tosee these things as gifts of a supportive GodAs Wiegele skillfully shows it is the move-mentrsquos ritual process one focused on prayerrequests positive confession healing and tes-tifying that is crucial in transforming the waymembers construe their lives Those interestedin global Christianity the charismatic move-ment and the relation between religion andpolitical economy will welcome this carefullyobserved and well-argued study

Joel RobbinsUniversity of California San Diego


will be able to manage it is therefore hopedthat the author can find an Indian publisher forit soon


EXPLORING THE DEPTHS OF THEMYSTERY OF CHRIST K SUBBA RAOrsquoSECLECTIC PRAXIS OF HINDU DISCI-PLESHIP TO JESUS By H L RichardStudies in the Gospel Interface with IndianContexts Bangalore Centre for ContemporaryChristianity (international distribution httpmergingcurrentscom) 2005 Pp xiii + 219$1595 ISBN 8-190-22942-7

Kalagara Subba Rao (1912-81) was a radi-cal Hindu disciple of Christ who refused to bebaptized was very highly critical of the Chris-tian church and yet wrote songs of profounddevotion to the Christ whom he worshipped asdivine Guru Subba Raorsquos life and the continu-ing movement that he has inspired is rightlysaid by the author to ldquocomprise one of the mostfascinating chapters in the history of Christian-ity in Indiardquo Three introductory chapters placethe discussion in the contexts of contemporaryHindu identity and Indian Christianity (and alongish appendix also sets it within the contextof postorientalism) The longest chapter in thebook (some 60 pages) contains a valuable andcarefully compiled critical translation intoEnglish of the 34 Telegu songs Subba Rao com-posedmdashsongs or hymns that are still sung byhis followers and that compose the center of thebeliefs and practices of his followers anotherappendix provides a detailed thematic indexto these songs A further chapter then offers asympathetic but not uncritical appraisal ofSubba Rao and his continuing significanceThis is a well-researched well-documented andfluently written volume that draws upon andeffectively replaces a number of earlier studies

Bob RobinsonTyndale Graduate School of Theology

THE LIVING AND THE DEAD SOCIALDIMENSIONS OF DEATH IN SOUTHASIAN RELIGIONS Edited by Liz WilsonAlbany NY State University of New YorkPress 2003 Pp 212 $2295 ISBN 0-7914-5678-1

This illuminating volume contains eightarticles plus an introduction The articles arethe following David White on the alchemicalprocesses of calcinations regeneration andsymbolic rebirth among Rasa Siddhas and NthSiddhas Wilson on autocremation or voluntaryself-cremation among early South AsianBuddhists many as a response to the passingof the Buddha himself David Knipe on them9sivyanam (Telugu) a womanrsquos funerary rit-ual in which a deceased wife who died beforeher husband (an auspicious death) possesses afemale ritualist as the goddess Gaur7 en routeto her final abode (Knipe speculates that suchrituals were once more widespread on the sub-continent) Ricard Wolf on music and mourning

among the Kota of the Nilgiris and Sh7rsquo7 Mus-lims of South Asia noting the overall affectiveimpact and the culturally configured emotionalresponses to the music Jonathan Walters onnecromancy and changing ldquonecrotechnologiesrdquoamong the Buddhists of Sri Lanka GregorySchopen on desecration of st9pas by rivalmonks and nuns in the P5li Vinaya texts thesubstitution of st9pas with easily ldquomurderedrdquovegetables (radishes) and ritual death IsabelleNabokov on a Tamil countersorcery ritual(ka ippu) in which the victim of sorcery expe-riences a symbolic rebirth as a result of theritual performance and Peter Gottschalk onHindu and Muslim intercommunal cooperationin rituals of healing by the dead in certain Mus-lim darghs In many of these discussions thusthe death is social or ritual This volume wouldbe very good in graduate seminars not only arethe articles all excellent but the differentapproachesmdashtextual historical religious stud-ies and anthropologicalmdashshould provideample opportunity for profitable discussion


HINDU ICONOCLASTS RANMOHUNROY DAYANANDA SARASVATI ANDNINETEENTH CENTURY POLEMICSAGAINST IDOLATRY By Noel SalmondEditions SR volume 28 Waterloo CanadaWilfrid Laurier University Press 2004 Pp ix+ 172 $4495 ISBN 0-88920-419-5

This is a compact yet wide-ranging studyof Ranmohun Royrsquos and Dayananda Sarasvatirsquosantipathy to Indian iconic ritualism Salmondfirst examines this issue from the standpoint ofthe general dimensions of image rejection andthe history of image worship in India and thendelves into the specific positions put forthregarding image worship in Ranmohunrsquos andDayanandarsquos writings The study is fleshed outwith brief histories of their lives (includingsome armchair psychoanalysis of key eventsfrom their early years) a look at their placewithin the larger sphere of nineteenth-centuryIndia in which the British disparagement ofBrahminic Hinduism loomed large and finallyan assessment of Ranmohunrsquos and Dayanandarsquosinfluence evaluated within the framework ofthe larger question of iconoclasm in the historyof religions In the bookrsquos early chaptersSalmond overemphasizes the question of theorigins of Ranmohunrsquos and Dayanandarsquos antip-athy toward image rejection and overstates thesignificance of their antipathy to image worshipwithin their overall programs of reform In thefinal chapter however Salmond delivers amore nuanced view of the catalysts underlyingtheir iconoclasm looking to a complex offactors Muslim and Protestant ideologies(strongly tinged by nineteenth-century Britishpriggishness) as well as the Vedic revisionismand the tremendous intellectual depth of boththese men Graduate students and advancedundergraduate students will find considerable

lmacr

food for thought in Salmondrsquos book Despite aslight tendency to cite some outdated sources(eg J Farquhar 20-21 W Koppers 120)Salmond covers with admirable concision arange of topics critical to the study of modernIndia as well as to the history of religions ingeneral

Herman TullPrinceton University

SIKHS AND SIKHISM COMPRISINGGURU NANAK AND THE SIKH RELI-GION EARLY SIKH TRADITION THEEVOLUTION OF THE SIKH COMMU-NITY AND WHO IS A SIKH By W HMcLeod Delhi Oxford University Press 2004[1999] Pp 843 $2995 ISBN13 978-0-19-566842-6 ISBN 0-19-566892-6

This volume is a recent addition to OUPIndiarsquos Omnibus collection in which many ofthe important works of contemporary scholarshave been collected in a single large volumeAmong the scholars whose works appear in thisseries are for example Patrick Olivelle Ram-achandra Guha Bernard Cohn and RomilaThapar McLeod the well-known scholar ofSikhism from New Zealand has written prolif-ically on Sikh history and culture for fortyyears His books presented here are the follow-ing in order of appearance Guru Nanak andThe Sikh Religion (1968 based on McLeodrsquosPhD dissertation from the University of Lon-don 1965) Early Sikh Tradition (1980) TheEvolution of the Sikh Community (1976) andWho Is a Sikh (1989) Despite methodologicaladvances in Sikh studies McLeod remainsmandatory reading in the field as his knowl-edge of Sikh Panjabi poetry and scripturepolitics and identity formation history andhistoriography and details of the Sikh Panthshould be read by the present generation ofSikh scholars In addition scholars of otherbranches of Indian religion ought to familiarizethemselves with his oeuvre


BEYOND LINES OF CONTROL PER-FORMANCE AND POLITICS ON THEDISPUTED BORDERS OF LADAKHINDIA By Ravina Aggarwal Durham NCDuke University Press 2004 Pp ix + 305Cloth $8495 ISBN 0-8223-3428-3 paper$2395 ISBN 0-8223-3414-3

Aggarwal enthusiastically succeeds here inproving that ldquothe Tibetan model is inadequatefor addressing modern Ladakhrdquo by bringingit out of the realm of Tibetan Buddhist Studiessimpliciter and into a fully contextualized viewBeyond Lines of Control examines public per-formance in Ladakh as the site of contentionbetween East and South Asia India and Paki-stan Indian and Ladakhi Buddhist and Mus-lim privileged and outcaste tradition andmodernity etc as these intersect repeatedly invarious forums Aggarwal shows how perfor-mance repeatedly both enforces and subordi-









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Documents

Exploring the Depths of the Mystery of Christ: K. Subba Rao's Eclectic Praxis of Hindu Discipleship to Jesus – By H. L. Richard