RITES AND RITUALS OF KASHMIRI BRAHMINS.By Shashi Shekhar Toshkhani. New Delhi: Pentagon Press(for the Himalayan Research and Cultural Foundation),2010. Pp. 237. Cloth, $32.00.
Any book focusing on the religious life of the KashmiriPandit community is welcome. This understudied commu-nity was settled for more than a millennium in the Srinagarvalley but was forced to relocate en masse in the early1990s because of sectarian violence in and around Srina-gar. The Pandits have now completely dispersed to Jammu(about 300,000) or Delhi (about 100,000). Because of thepressures of modernity and globalization, the fact of relo-cation, the absence of authoritative religious gures, theretraining of priesthoods, and the shift away from primaryuse of Kashmiri, the earlier forms of Pandit ritual (andPandit identity) are beginning to disappear. Toshkhani, aliterary critic and poet, has not taken into account the his-torical and textual work of A. Sanderson or the cutting-edge parallel studies of A. Michaels in the KathmanduValley in Nepal. However, this book does well to recountmany of the important rituals themselves. Most of these arebased on the Laugaksi Grhyasu tra of the Kathaka rescen-sion of the Black (Krsn a) Yajurveda and locally producedperformance manuals based on Laugaksi. This itself isimportant to the study of domestic ritual in India becausethis text is rarely utilized elsewhere. Ritual drawn fromthese texts is supplemented by Tantric practice adaptedfrom the well-known Saiva schools of Kashmir propoundedin the eighth century and later by Abhinavagupta andmany others. Toshkhani describes in some detail the child-hood rites of passage (sam skara), initiation into brahmani-cal practice (upanayana), marriage and funeral rites,obligatory daily ritual, re (homa) and temple ritual (pu ja ),important festivals (such as Maha sivaratr), the use of cos-mograms (yantra and mandala), and local variants of muralpainting and astrology, and discusses some of the other for-mative texts in the history of Pandit ritualism such as theNlamata Puran a. This is an important volume for scholarsinterested in the history of Indian ritual praxis or thehistory of Kashmir and the Pandit community.
East AsiaCONSTRUCTING CHINAS JERUSALEM: CHRIS-TIANS, POWER, AND PLACE IN CONTEMPORARYWENZHOU. By Nanlai Cao. Contemporary Issues in Asiaand the Pacic Series. Stanford, CA: Stanford UniversityPress, 2011. Pp. xii + 216. $18.95.
years, have been at the vanguard both of Wenzhous transi-tion into the neoliberal market economy and of the evangeli-cal Christian revival that has transformed the religiouslandscape in this region. Cao delineates especially theagency of the Wenzhounese in the remaking of both Chris-tian and Chinese cultural identity while also observing howthese developments have perpetuated a patriarchal andpaternalistic form of religion consistent with the classicallyconservative Confucian tradition, and forged new forms ofclass hierarchies and stratications between the haves andhave-nots in the urban arena and vis--vis rural migrationdynamics. As Jerusalem was the center of the rst-centuryChristian movement, so also do contemporary WenzhouneseChristians understand themselves as being at the forefrontof the religious and economic transformation of China in apost-Maoist sociopolitical context. But traditional theoreticaldichotomies are dismantled in the process as these bossChristians not only have emerged as key players(patrons) in the local and national political economy butalso lead congregational networks that are neither formallyregistered nor part of the informal (underground) arena.The result is a fascinating glimpse into the business ofindigenous Chinese religion with signicant implications foranthropological and socioeconomic studies of Christianity inthe late modern world.
JAPANESE MYTHOLOGY: HERMENEUTICS ONSCRIPTURE. By Junchi Isomae. Oakville, CT: EquinoxPublishing, 2010. Pp. 189. Paper, $32.95.
key postwar streams of interpretation of Japanesemythology.Chapter 4, Myth and Rationality: Understanding God in theEarly-Modern and Modern Periods, and chapter 5, Mythand Nationalism: Motoori Norinagas Creation Myths, are atreasure house of provocative ideas about the power of theKiki in Japanese politics, national memory, and identity.Despite its aws, this book is essential for a nuanced under-standing of the complex ways the Kiki have been utilizedthroughout Japanese history, particularly with the rise ofState Shinto in the modern period.
NATURES EMBRACE: JAPANS AGING URBAN-ITES AND NEW DEATH RITES. By Satsuki Kawano.Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2010. Pp. ix + 220.Cloth, $47.00; paper, $27.00.
In this intriguing study, Kawano examines changingmortuary practices and shifting attitudes to end-of-lifechoices among Japans aging urbanites. Based on eldworkconducted with one specic group, the Grave-Free PromotionSociety of Japan (GFPS), this study explores how the practiceof scattering ashes in natural sites is emerging as an alterna-tive to the more common practice of interring ashes in inher-ited multigenerational graves. Kawano argues that ashscattering represents one solution to the challenges posed bylimited space in ancestral graves and the uncertainty that inJapans postindustrial society, descendents will performappropriate memorial rituals. She also reasons that choosingto have ones ashes scattered is a way of controlling how oneis memorialized. This practice is certainly the preferredchoice of the members of GFPS, but because this is the onlygroup she investigated, it is unclear how representative thesemembers are of the general aging population. Nonetheless,she places her study of GFPS within a valuable historicaloverview of modern Japanese mortuary and memorial prac-tices, and effectively argues that this groups response tochallenges posed by post-WorldWar II Japans shifting demo-graphics is but onemethodwithin a diverse history of how thedead are and choose to be commemorated.
IMPERIAL POLITICS AND SYMBOLICS INANCIENT JAPAN: THE TENMU DYNASTY, 650-800.By Herman Ooms. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,2009. Pp. 376. $50.00.
the mid-sixth century, Buddhism had been championed atthe Yamato court by the parvenu Soga clan, who sought tousurp the power of clans associated with the indigenoustraditions. By 592, the Soga managed to place their own ruleron the thronethe empress Suikormly establishing Bud-dhism at the court. But after 673, Temmu strove diligently,and successfully, to reverse his predecessors China-oriented reforms and to redene court authority by revivingpre-Buddhist court religious traditions (such as the daijo -saienthronement rite) and by strengthening links with the Iseshrine. It was under Temmu that the name of Amaterasurst appears in a contemporary historical record. Temmusmodications were an attempt to restore the political reali-ties of pre-Buddhist Japan. But little in Temmus modica-tions were identiably Taoist. The data that Ooms adduces asTaoist are often just elements of medieval Chinese culturethat non-Taoists (of that period and later) misconstrued asTaoist. Future studies of this material should be more fullygrounded in the facts of Six-Dynasties/Tang Taoism.
HERO AND DEITY: TRAN HUNG DAO AND THERESURGENCE OF POPULAR RELIGION INVIETNAM. By Pham Quynh Phuong. Chiang Mai, Thailand:Mekong Press, 2009. Pp. xi + 227. THB 625, $25.00.
Worshiped at public temples, pilgrimage sites, andprivate shrines, the thirteenth-century martial gure knownas Saint Tran (Tran Hung Dao) is the object of nationalistpride among Vietnamese from all walks of life. He is remem-bered for twice defeating Mongol invaders, venerated as acultural and national hero, and worshiped as a divine pro-tector against malevolent spirits that bring disease and mis-fortune. Once derided and suppressed as superstitious, theworship of Saint Tran is now celebrated as a source ofnational identity and unity, essential to state building. Thisvolume is one of the most convincing, penetrating, and sen-sitive analyses to come out of the recent spate of scholarshipon contemporary Vietnamese popular religion and medium-ship traditions. Based on ethnographic work conducted innorthern Vietnammainly Hanoithe study is rich with localdetail, telling vignettes, and the voices of not only mediumsbut also their devotees and clients. The author deftly situatesher study within multiple contexts, locating the cult withinthe discourse of national identity and unity, the implicationsof the academic production of knowledge about popular reli-gion, contestation over local sacred sites related to the saint,and the everyday lives of a range of devotees, male andfemale, from high-ranking ofcials to ordinary workers. Thisvolume will prove to be essential reading for scholars inter-ested in Vietnamese religions, the contemporary religiousresurgence in Southeast Asia, popular religion and statebuilding, the phenomenon of female mediumship in Asianreligions, and the interface of religion and economic reform.
PORTRAITS OF CHO GEN: THE TRANSFORMA-TION OF BUDDHIST ART IN EARLY MEDIEVALJAPAN. By John M. Roseneld. Japanese Visual CultureSeries, vol. 1. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2011. Pp. 296; 162 plates, 2maps. $132.00.
In this beautifully produced book, Roseneld, HarvardUniversity professor emeritus of Japanese art, has written asuperb account of the state of Japanese Buddhism at a pivotalmoment in time, through the lens of S. Chogen (1121-1206),the monk who led the restoration of Japanese Buddhismsgreatest national symbol, the temple complex of Todaiji inNara, which was destroyed in a ruthless civil war in 1180.Although few of the products of Chogens efforts at Todaijihave survived, Roseneld interweaves documentary sourcesand extant imagery to bring this tumultuous age to life. Inthe process, he explicates how renewed contacts with Chinathen played a critical role in the faiths transmission, impact-ing both developments within Japanese Buddhism and itsrelated material culture. His chapters address wide-rangingtopics including reasons for the unusual architectural styleadopted for the restored Daibutsuden (Great Buddha Hall) atTodaiji, the renewed realism in painted and sculpted icons,the history of East Asian portraiture generally and priestportraiture in particular, and the uses of Buddhist ritualobjects. Roseneld explores the complex interpersonaldynamics that shaped Buddhisms reception in Japanthrough a discussion of Chogens relations with monks ofother sects, esteemed lineages of Buddhist sculptors, politi-cians, and lay patrons. This excellent book is a rarity in thatRosenelds clear writing and careful explanations makethis complex topic accessible to nonspecialists while concur-rently, his use of diverse primary sources, includingChogens own memoir (translated in an appendix), distin-guishes it as an invaluable resource for specialists as well.
THE CONSTANT AND CHANGING FACES OF THEGODDESS: GODDESS TRADITIONS OF ASIA. Editedby Deepak Shimkhada and Phyllis K. Herman. New Castle,UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. Pp. xi + 294.$79.99.
divine feminine or the Goddess. Neither the editors norany of the authors offer a denition of the frequently invokedcategory the Goddess and so miss the chance to explore theinterpretive and analytical implications of this unquestionedcategory, especially the tendency to slip all too easily intonormative claims and ideological heavy-handedness. Thechapters that do make signicant contributions are too fewand all too brief. Nevertheless, the strength of this editedvolume tends to be in the study of the goddess traditions ofHinduism and popular Chinese religions. For this reason,scholars specializing in the latter two areas should be awareof this volume, but it would not be suitable as a text for eitheran undergraduate- or graduate-level course.
THE UNENCUMBERED SPIRIT: REFLECTIONS OFA CHINESE SAGE. By Hung Ying-ming. Translated byWilliam Scott Wilson. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2009.Pp. 224. $19.95.
This book is a rarity: it serves 1) as a coffee-table bookfor anyone interested in Eastern Thought; 2) as a supple-mental text for students in courses on Asian Thought orReligion; and 3) as an enhancement of scholars appreciationof the near-universal acceptance of the mutual validity ofThe Three Teachings (i.e., Confucianism, Taoism, and Bud-dhism) in Late Imperial China. Wilson translates a workcalled Tsai-ken tan (Caigentan, Vegetable Roots Dis-course) composed ca. 1590 by a Chinese literatus herenamed Hung Yung-ming (Hong Yongming), otherwiseknown as Hung Tzu-cheng (Hong Zicheng). Wilson says thatwhile the Tsai-ken tan was briey enjoyed in China, itachieved its greatest popularity in Japan, where it was rstprinted in 1822, and bases his translation on a Japaneseversion (pronounced Saikontan). It comprises 357 parallel-prose verses on living in simplicity, rooted in lifes eternalverities. The rst segment deals with the art of living insociety, the second . . . more with mans solitude and con-templation of nature. Wilson suggests that to late-imperialliterati like Hung, sagehood was no longer an unattainableideal: as the eleventh-century Confucian theorists ChouTun-i (Zhou Dunyi) and Chang Tsai (Zhang Zai) had main-tained, sagehood was now understood to be the formation ofone body with Heaven and Earth and all things. Scholarsmight have wished for mention of pertinent scholarlystudies or previous English translations. But for studentsand general readers alike, this contribution is certainlyworthwhile.
BuddhismBUDDHAYANA: LIVING BUDDHISM. By Anil Goone-wardene. London: Continuum, 2010. Pp. 298. $27.95.