{"title":"The forest book of the Rāmāyaṇa of Kampaṉ . Translated, with annotation, and introduction, by George L. Hart and Hank Heifetz. pp. ix, 402 + errata slip. Berkeley etc., University of California Press, 1988. US $35.00.","authors":"K. Zvelebil","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X0010824X","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X0010824X","url":null,"abstract":"and Shinran, and under chapter 5 on the Tathdgatagarbha for Dogen. However, there is a good index and the risk of overlooking material need not be exaggerated. Inevitably certain topics have been omitted: Tantric Buddhism does not feature at all and Zen is dealt with only briefly. To my mind this loss is adequately compensated for by the inclusion of specific chapters on the Tathdgatagarbha and Hua-Yen, which are far less adequately covered elsewhere. Arguments and assertions are throughout backed up by reference to primary sources, and there are citations or quotations from texts on almost every page. There are misprints too numerous to mention, not least the glaring \" boddhisattva\" on the rear cover, and it is to be hoped that these can be removed in future editions.","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"187 - 189"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X0010824X","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57099892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Aurobindo and Zaehner on the Bhagavad-Gītā. By Yvonne Williams and Michael McElvaney. (The Sanskrit Tradition in the Modern World.) pp. iv, 39, Newcastle upon Tyne, S.Y. Killingley, distrib. by Grevatt and Grevatt, 1988. £4.00.","authors":"J. B. Katz","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00108214","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00108214","url":null,"abstract":"The volume is concluded by an appendix discussing firstly \"The status and purpose of grammar\" a section which in some ways might best have figured as an introduction to the volume and thus to the whole work and secondly \"Terms for the language described and for the grammar and its components\" (which begins with Hanuman's use of the term samskrtSm vacant when musing how to address Slta, at Rdmdyana 5.28.18, which Cardona regards as probably the first use of the term with reference specifically to a language, a view by which I am not wholly convinced). The ending is indeed rather abrupt, if this volume is taken in isolation, but of course it is itself the introductory volume to the much more comprehensive survey which is to follow and for which it is meant to provide the basis. Full discussion of various interpretations of Panini's work, with the arguments presented by various Paninlyas, is promised for subsequent volumes. It should be noted that, though introductory in the sense just outlined, the present volume is by no means basic in the level at which it is presented. It is scarcely an introduction to Panini for students but rather a preliminary statement by one scholar for others, laying the groundwork for still more advanced discussion of the subject. Consequently, reading it is demanding but amply rewarded by the clarity of the presentation given. The text of the volume has been prepared by the author on computer and printed directly from its output. One minor by-product of this method of production has been the ability to include the text of the sutras in both devandgarT and in transliteration on the same line. More importantly, it has kept the number of misprints down to very minor proportions; it has not entirely eliminated them but it has ensured that they are not serious (and indeed in many cases self-correcting, as for instance in the first two noticed: the citations of 2.1.3 and 1.1.45 on pp. 13 and 19 respectively, where the transliterated text corrects the devandgart). The appearance is not quite equal to the best of printed texts but is well above the general standard of Indian books, and the relative freedom from misprints is an important point in favour of this mode of production; Cardona deserves our thanks for the labour involved in producing such a clean text to reproduce. The subject matter, though, is more important than the form and here, while any complete assessment must await the remainder of this major undertaking, it is already clear that Cardona is placing us all in his debt once again by the range and comprehensiveness of his scholarship in Paninian studies, as well as by the clarity of his exposition.","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"183 - 184"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00108214","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57100082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Southeast Asia in the age of Commerce 1450–1680. Volume One: the lands below the winds. by Anthony Reid. pp. xvi, 275, illus., 4 maps. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1988. £20.00.","authors":"D. Duncanson","doi":"10.1017/s0035869x00108330","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0035869x00108330","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"197 - 199"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/s0035869x00108330","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57100409","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The commerce in rubber: the first 250 years . by Austin Coates. pp. xv, 380, 50 pi., 3 maps (2 on endpapers). Singapore etc., Oxford University Press, 1987. (Commissioned by the Singapore International Chamber of Commerce Rubber Association.) £25.00.","authors":"D. Duncanson","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00108354","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00108354","url":null,"abstract":"American reserve stock, on the eve of Pearl Harbour. Post-war technology, from synthetic to \"crumb\" rubber (a French invention) is explained, and the effects on the market, culminating along with other causes in the emergence of Singapore and the sponsors of Coates's researches as a, or the, major international market of the world. The last words in the book are on rubber exports from Southeast Asia after independence: although the industry in Ceylon seems to have gone to rack and ruin, rubber has flourished in Burma while other production was dwindling to a trickle.","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"200 - 200"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00108354","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57100505","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Burmese entrepreneurship: creative response in the colonial economy . by Aung Tun Thet. (Beiträge zur Südasienforschung, Südasien-Institut, Universität Heidelberg, Band 126.) pp. xvi, 197. Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH, 1989. DM 36.","authors":"H. Tinker","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00108366","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00108366","url":null,"abstract":"American reserve stock, on the eve of Pearl Harbour. Post-war technology, from synthetic to \"crumb\" rubber (a French invention) is explained, and the effects on the market, culminating along with other causes in the emergence of Singapore and the sponsors of Coates's researches as a, or the, major international market of the world. The last words in the book are on rubber exports from Southeast Asia after independence: although the industry in Ceylon seems to have gone to rack and ruin, rubber has flourished in Burma while other production was dwindling to a trickle.","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"200 - 201"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00108366","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57100518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Manūchihrī's Māzandarān ode: an English version","authors":"A. Bivar","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00107853","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00107853","url":null,"abstract":"The Persian province of Māzandarān has characteristics unique in the land of Iran, even among its Caspian neighbours. The landscape of mountain, forest, ricefield and sea has its special freshness and charm, worlds away from the rocky plateau and searing desert further to the south. Its beauty was appreciated among others by the Safavid Shāh 'Abbās, who built an engineered highroad hidden to-day by the forest above Gālūgāh, and maintained favoured residences at Behshahr and Faraḥābād. For the visiting stranger, the most obvious impression is that created by the perennial Māzandarān cloud, a sea of cotton tufts, as it is often described, rising steadily up the hillsides with the growing heat of the day, to sink back into the valleys with the chill of evening, or fall as soft drizzle through the hours of darkness. When the traveller ascending the mountainside reaches the level of condensation, suddenly he is in a world of total humidity, with streaming perspiration, and water running from the trees and undergrowth. Twenty minutes later he has passed through the cloudbase, and entered the bone-dry world of “Iraq”. Dry sand replaces the treacherous “yellow clay” (zarde gil) beneath his feet, and the cool breeze in an instant evaporates the moisture from his shirt.","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"55 - 63"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00107853","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57098875","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Les noms divins en Islam. Exégèse lexicographique et théologique . By Daniel Gimaret. (Patrimoines islam.) pp. 448. Paris, Les Éditions du Cerf. FF 295.","authors":"Julian Baldick","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00107981","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00107981","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"150 - 151"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00107981","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57099188","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mannerism in Arabic Poetry: a structural analysis of selected texts (3rd century AH/9th century AD – 5th century AH/11th century AD) . By Stefan Sperl. (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization.) pp. viii, 230. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989. £27.50.","authors":"J. Meisami","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00108020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00108020","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"155 - 156"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00108020","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57099233","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Prajāpati's relations with Brahman, Bṛhaspati and Brahmā . By J. Gonda. (Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks, deel 138.) pp. 78, Amsterdam etc., North–Holland Publishing Company, 1989.","authors":"Karel Werner","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00108172","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00108172","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"177 - 178"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00108172","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57099650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Veda recitation in Vārāṇasī . By Howard Wayne, pp. xi, 400. Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1988. Rs. 225.","authors":"J. B. Katz","doi":"10.1017/S0035869X00108226","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/S0035869X00108226","url":null,"abstract":"He stresses Zaehner's admiration of Lamotte's Notes sur la Gltd; like Lamotte, whose view of the Gita was uninfluenced by Sarikara's advaitavdda, Zaehner held that the unification with Brahman was only the penultimate stage of deliverance, surpassed by union with the personal Godhead. McElvaney points to some of Zaehner's \"innovative\" translations and interpretations of crucial terms, like buddhi, nirvdna and yoga, in the service of his total view of the text. The influence of the Bhagavadgrta on contemporary religious thought is alive and well, as is shown in recent studies like Eric Sharpe's The Universal Gita (1985) and Robert Minor's Modern Interpretations of the Bhagavadgita (1988). It is in this context that both Aurobindo and Zaehner will continue to have a wide readership, though perhaps in different circles, while students of early Indian theology and philosophical history will continue to need other texts and editions. But the significance of the Gita is impossible to separate entirely from the commentarial traditions which it has generated; coming to grips with the ideas of influential interpreters, however they may vary, can deepen our appreciation of the text itself. Furthermore, we may find here some useful case-studies in hermeneutics. It is a pity that this book could not include also two other Newcastle papers on the Gita, one on Bankim Chandra Chatterji's use of it, and one on Simone Weil. This latter has been separately published in Theology 90, no. 733 (1988).","PeriodicalId":81727,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland","volume":"122 1","pages":"184 - 185"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1990-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/S0035869X00108226","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57099683","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}