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All the contributions are of a high standard, and they cover a widerange of topics. There are some contributions from eminent scholarswhich add to the understanding of various grammatical categories, thusfor Malto, Mahapatra goes back to Durkheimian ‘sociocentrism’ toexplain the development of a complex system of Numeral Classifiers.A very interesting paper by Bhat shows the need to re-examine thenormal categories of noun and verb in Mundari, Santali and Bhumij andshows how these categories are much closer to each other than is evidentfrom the current grammars. Stan Sarosta’s paper gives a lexicase analysisof Sora noun inflection. Norman Zide gives a fascinating analysis ofthe complexities of the use of pronominal clitics in Gutob-Remo-Gta?,which is part of South Munda. Zide laments on several occasions ‘nordo I have available Gutob informants’ (p. 324) and ‘No Gta? informantsare available in Chicago’ (p. 333). One sympathises with him: in afew papers one has the feeling, however, that the scholars involvedare not thirsting to do more fieldwork and are somehow distant fromthe practicalities and the human aspects of the languages involved.This makes the work of those scholars who are dedicated field-workersseem even more relevant and vibrant. Just to mention the most striking:Claus Peter Zoller’s work on the language of the oral epic from theGarhwal Himalayas shows a deep understanding of the people and theirtraditions. K. V. Subbarao and B. Laitha in their article on the passivein Mizo show how there are ongoing changes in the way the passive isformed and that these changes are reflected by the usage of differentgeneration levels.

We must be grateful to Anvita Abbi for bringing together this volumeand hope that she will be able to inspire a generation of younger Indianand overseas linguists. We hope that this will be the first of many futurevolumes in this important field.

Australian National University L.A. SCHWARZSCHILD-HERCUS

Canberra

Kevin Trainor, Relics, Ritual, and Representation in Buddhism:Rematerializing the Sri Lankan Therav�ada Tradition. Cambridge Studiesin Religious Traditions,X. xiv, 223 pp., bibliogr. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1997.

When carrying out ethnographic research in Sri Lanka in 1982, thepresent reviewer was taken by his landlord in Kandy to a special public

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viewing of the tooth-relic of the Buddha at the Dal.ad�a M�alig�awa, orTemple of the Tooth, in Kandy. The viewing drew huge crowds ofpilgrims, most of whom would normally expect to see no more thanthe casket within which the relic is usually housed. Although neverofficially acknowledged, the popular opinion was that the viewinghad been arranged by the temple authorities after pressure from thegovernment, concerned at the effects of a long drought on the country’sprosperity. The author of the book under review, an American historianof the Therav�ada tradition, records being taken byhis landlord in 1991,to meet a woman called M�an. iy�o, whose religious fame rested in parton her capacity to make relics of the Buddha, as well as Ayurvedicmedicines, manifest themselves out of thin air. The relics thus revealedwere venerated by her middle-class devotees, who felt that they broughtgood fortune in their more hazardous business dealings.

Whatever we make of these recent occurrences – and Trainor is atpains to stress the apparent novelty of M�an. iy�o’s activities – they serveto remind us of the central importance of the relics of the Buddha in thereligious ideas and practices of the Therav�ada Buddhists of Sri Lanka.That importance, and its deep historical presence, is attested to by theubiquity of monastic structures –d�ag�abas or st�upas – constructed tohouse the relics of the Buddha and, as such, the focus of considerableritual attention from lay Buddhists. Yet much modern scholarship onTherav�ada Buddhism could be best described as embarrassed by theevidence of relic veneration. Nineteenth-century Western sympathizers,like the Americans Olcott and Carus, departed from their Sri LankanBuddhist colleagues over the continued veneration of relics, a practice theWesterners found too reminiscent of the ‘idolatry’ and ‘superstition’ oftheir own Christian cultures. The attitude lingers in the twentieth century,as Trainor shows in his judicious evaluation of Bareau’s influentialargument that relic veneration is a later accretion on a purer, andmore philosophically austere, original Buddhism. In his critique ofthis position, Trainor explicitly aligns himself with recent revisionists,who would broaden the history of Buddhism to include evidence fromarchaeology and ethnography alongside the philological preoccupationsof earlier textual scholars. This is the ‘rematerializing’ to which Trainor’ssubtitle alludes.

The book effectively attempts two tasks. One is an overview andcritique of the existing secondary literature on relic veneration inTherav�ada Buddhism, much of which concerns the historical depthof the practice. The second is a reading of chronicle material fromSri Lanka, especially the 14th-centuryDh�atuvam. sa (‘the chronicle of

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the relics’), as well as the better knownMah�avam. sa andC�ulavam. sa.Despite the book’s subtitle, relatively little use is made of archaeologicalevidence, and any claims to cover the field comprehensively are seriouslyweakened by Trainor’s decision to exclude any extended treatment of‘commemorative relics’, of which the Bo-tree is best known, or ofthe special case of the tooth-relic, apparently because it already hasa substantial scholarly literature of its own and because of its specialrelationship with the symbolism of political authority in Sri Lanka.These somewhat arbitrary divisions of the subject-matter inevitablyskew Trainor’s argument in some directions (e.g., the issue of thepresence of the Buddha), and away from others (e.g., the question ofthe instrumental consequences of relic veneration raised in my openingexamples). Nevertheless, Trainor’s book should convince most readersof the need to take relics, and especially the ritual practices that surroundthem, far more seriously. Moreover, in his lucid and accessible reviewof the chronicle material and the secondary literature on Buddhism inSri Lanka, he has written a book which will be invaluable for anyoneteaching the history of Buddhism to students of religious studies andcomparative religion.

University of Edinburgh JONATHAN SPENCER

Vielle, Christophe,Le Mytho-Cycle H�eroique dans l’Aire Indo-Europ�eenne: correspondances et transformations hell�eno-aryennes(Pub-lications de l’Institut Orientaliste de Louvain46). Universit�e Catholiquede Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, 1996. ISBN 90-6831-813-6 (Belgium),2-87723-219-0 (France), pp. xvii + 253.

The early history of the world is articulated by cataclysms togeth-er with all-consuming fires. After the first of these, a new generationof men was created, greater than men of today. The greatest of themwas the child of the king of the gods and a mortal woman. This herolived his life moving on the margins of civilization, dressed in the skinof an animal. He hunted and fought with the bow, killing monstersfor the help of gods and men. This age came to an end with fire anddeluge, and a new generation followed, so numerous that the earthwas distressed thereby, and the gods devised a war to lighten the bur-den, a war caused by a polyandrous woman whose presence provokedoutrages to honour and property. The greatest hero of this generation

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