■
Book Review■
KAWASHIMA,
Koji, Missionaries and the Hindu
State: Travancore 1858-1936
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998, vi-252pp., Rs. 450
This book explores the relationship between a "self-declared Hindu state" in the process of its modernisation and Christian missionaries. By arguing that the history of princely states marked an "alternative course of Indian history" during the 19th and 20th century, Kawashima sets out to chart the complex history of interaction between princely states, the British Raj and Christian missionaries. This book while analysing familiar issues from the history of modern Kerala has provided a
chal-lenging and refreshing insight into the same problem. By not treating
the missionaries as the handmaidens of colonialism, he has problematised
the relationship between religion, state and political practice in the
colo-nial period.
Missionary activity was a critical component of the 19th century
Travancore landscape. Kawashima argues interestingly that the state
and missionaries were more often than not in consonance with each
other's interests than clashing with each other. Equally he makes an
important case for examining the continuity of forms of kingship in the
modernisation and democratisation process in Travancore. The
coexis-tence of caste and community based movements; modernisation within a
Hindu state; and missionary activity complicated the relationship of the
colonial state with Travancore. In part this was because the social, eco-
nomic and political changes in the latter half of 19th century in Travancore
were more widespread than previously experienced. Caste and commu- nity based movements, which were a result of these, affected groups across the social spectrum. For even the lowest in the caste hierarchy, like the Pulayas and the Parayas the demand for education became a rallying cry to achieve social mobility.
Travancore as a Hindu state incorporated many rituals and social func-tions associated with kingship. All the Travancore kings ruled as the earthly representatives of Vishnu, and used the title of Padmanabhadasa. All the rituals associated with kingship in Travancore, from coronation
232 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies , 12, 2000
onwards, incorporated notions of divine legitimacy. In addition, the state
also propitiated and sustained a large number of Brahmins who legitimised
the kings political authority. While the colonial state expressed some
discomfiture regarding such rituals and practices, especially as wasteful
expenditure, they did not attempt to intervene in such activities. This
was largely as a recognition of the right of the princely state to maintain its image as a 'Hindu' kingdom.
Nevertheless the relationship of the Hindu kings to non-Hindus within their kingdom was a complex one. Throughout the 19th century the kings provided many concessions to both older groups of Christians (like the Syrian Christian community) and newer entrants like the London
based missionaries. In fact many of the older Christian orders were in-corporated into the fabric of the state through a complex process of the distribution of honours. Rituals and temple celebrations became an oc-casion for developing syncretic practices, where Hindu and Christian participated alongside each other in the maintenance of the social order.
It is against such a backdrop that one needs to examine the process of
'
modernisation' initiated by the kings and ministers of Travancore in the
latter half of the 19th century. A wide range of land, education and
administrative reforms were initiated by them, which in turn allowed
them to be characterised as 'enlightened' and Travancore treated as a
model' state. A part of this 'enlightenment' was to actually allow the missionaries a critical role in imparting education. While modernisation was generally recognised as a public good, it also held within it the paradoxical possibility of a challenge to the monarchy. This was because larger numbers of the erstwhile underprivileged and marginal sections of
society began to desire a share of the 'modern' amenities made available by the state. For both the caste and community based organisations, the right to education and employment became a central part of mobilising their ranks. While these movements presented a challenge to the 'be-nevolent' face of kingship, they also pointed to a more disturbing fact . This was the increasing number of conversions being made by the mis-sionaries. Therefore, by the early 20th century the relationship between
the Travancore government and the missionaries was a complicated one•\ on the one hand they did not wish to undermine their educational or other activities completely; on the other hand they were dead set against the conversions of the Hindu population as well as what they saw as the
missionaries interference in 'Hindu customs'.
This feeling, interestingly enough, was shared by the colonial state too. While the state saw itself as a 'civilising' presence within India, it increasingly maintained a policy of 'religious neutrality'. Such a contra-diction led to a difference in its attitude towards missionary activity over
time. While in the first half of the 19th century it supported the pro lower caste agitations led by the missionaries (be it anti-slavery, or the
'
breast cloth controversy') by the latter half of the 19th century this had
changed. This was in part the result of the policy of non-interference
adopted by the colonial authorities in the wake of the 1857 Mutiny.
Consequently, many of the issues raised by the missionaries in this
pe-riod did not meet with much favour.
Nevertheless, till the 1930s the missionaries did enjoy a reasonable degree of freedom within Travancore. This was principally due to the function they provided as educationists, and within medical missions.
However, such an ambivalent state support could not offset the growing
tide of anti-Christian feeling within the state. Kawashima shows how
this coalesced in and mission activities initiated by upper caste groups
who wished to broaden the base of 'Hinduism' in order to maintain
control over those lower castes who may have escaped from the fold
through conversions. This picture too changed by 1947 when the
politi-cal changes introduced by the national movement deprived both the princes and the missionaries of the powers they had enjoyed in pre-Independent India. However during this period the ground had been set for the growing forces of communalism and inter caste rivalries that would affect the political map of contemporary Kerala.
Kawashima Koji's fine analysis of the religious and political
accom-modations, tensions and rivalries between the missionaries, the princely state and colonial authorities marks a break from the earlier literature on similar themes in the context of Kerala. In the context of growing com-munal conflict in contemporary India, it is also a useful reminder for continuing to study political movements in complex ways.
G. Arunima University of Delhi
234 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 12, 2000
■
Book Review■
SATO Masanori, NAKAZATO Nariaki, and
MIZUSHIMA Tsukasa, Sekai no Rekishi, 14 kan.
Mugaru Teikoku kara Eiryo Indo e (in Japanese)
[A History of the World, vol. 14. From the Mughal
Empire to British India]
Tokyo: Chuokoron-sha, 1998, 598pp., ••2524 + tax
This book is a volume in the series entitled A History of the World published by one of the major publishers in Japan, the Chuokoron-sha. It covers Indian history from the time of the Muslim rulers' rise to power in North India till the establishment of the British Raj. Written by three experienced Japanese scholars of South Asia, the book is rich in information and stimulating argument, and demonstrates the consider-able development of the studies of this region in the last two or more decades. It is highly recommended not only for specialists but also for non-specialists, thanks to the authors' clear and straightforward style of writing and the use of numerous coloured maps, tables and photos.
The book is divided into three major parts. Part I (Chapters 1-3), written by Sato, is entitled 'The establishment of Muslim regimes and their development'. The number of Japanese scholars working on In-dian history before the eighteenth century is very small, in contrast with
a large group of historians of modern India. In this context, Sato has been playing a significant role in promoting the study of medieval In-dia.1)
The first chapter of Part I deals with the Muslim invasion of the
subcontinent and the subsequent development of the Delhi Sultanate. Here the author emphasises the flexible and realistic attitude of Muslim rulers towards Hindus. (p. 18) He also draws our attention to the
diver-sity among the Muslims, who, in fact, consisted of different regional and ethnic groups.
According to the author, the Hindus, for their part, had to develop a
'
new spirit of tolerance', seeing Rajput armies continuously defeated by
(p. 19) It is not exactly clear what Sato means by this 'new spirit of tolerance' of the Hindus. It would also have been helpful for readers if he had explained which people this term 'Hindus' referred to and whether we can find some notion of a united community of Hindus in this period. This issue raises the difficult question of how exactly we should use the categories of people and territories commonly used in modern South Asia for describing earlier periods when these categories were either not used or used in very different ways. One might ask this question again when Sato states that the Rajputs failed to recognise 'their common enemy' (i.e. the Muslim armies) and 'the danger of India', thus paving the way for Muslim rule in North India. (p. 23)
Sato's account of the Delhi Sultanate includes many interesting
epi-sodes of individual sultans. Sato rightly draws our attention to the
Indianisation' of the Delhi Sultanate, by which he means the rise of
Indian Muslims' power in the administration. With his focus on the
Delhi Sultanate, Sato also notes several regional Muslim regimes which emerged around the fifteenth century. At the end of this chapter, he describes the 'culture and society', again emphasising the process of
'
Indianisation', which in this case means the development of lndo-Is一 lamic culture. Important religious movements such as the bhakti move-ment, Sikhism and Sufism are also mentioned.
In the next two chapters, Sato provides a detailed picture of the politi-cal, economic and social conditions of the Mughal empire. The most
interesting part in these chapters is his detailed analysis of the military and administrative system of the empire, based on his own research. In particular, he focuses on the system of classification among its officers (the mansabdari system), combined with the corresponding assignment of jagirs to them by the emperor. Sato examines closely how this system actually worked in the case of Rajasthan and how it influenced both Rajput rulers and the empire.
At the end of Chapter 3, there is an account of the culture and society of the Mughal period. Here again, Sato stresses the state policy of 'toler-ance and harmony' and the development of Indo-Islamic culture. Then
in the concluding section of Part I, the author, quoting Percival Spear,
argues that the British success in uniting India was based on the
previ-ous unity of the Mughal empire. However, according to Sato, the British
'
236 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 12, 2000
Indian society. The result was the partition of the subcontinent into two countries (India and Pakistan), and later into three (with the creation of Bangladesh), and even today one sees conflicts between states and among different ethnic and communal groups. 'Yet', Sato continues, 'many of these problems have their historical origin in the establishment of Mus-lim regimes.' (pp. 203-4) Readers might need more explanation from the author about these points, for they are deeply related to the broader question of how to evaluate British rule and its impact on Indian society. Part II (Chapters 4-9), written by Nakazato, is entitled 'The forma-tion of British India'. His detailed and careful arguments well demon-strate how far studies of modern South Asia in Japan have progressed in recent years.
First, Nakazato explains how he tries to analyse the Indian society of this period. He argues that the construction of colonial society should be examined as a process in which the internal power of Indian society and the external power of British rule interacted with each other. What is
important here is his emphasis on the role played by Indian society in
the process of colonisation. As the author says, although this approach
has become quite common by now, it was not necessarily so a generation
ago; at that time the stress was exclusively placed on the impact of
Brit-ish rule, whether the nature of this impact was positive or negative. The agency and autonomy of Indian society were largely neglected. (pp. 211-16) In Nakazato's account, by contrast, the agency of Indian society is consciously highlighted.
Having clarified his approach, the author then stresses the difficulty of
describing a complicated change in Indian society within such a limited space. The regional diversity of India only adds to this difficulty. It is obvious that Nakazato struggled hard with the problem of lack of space, a problem further exacerbated by the publisher's policy of allowing no footnotes. As a result, he frequently uses brackets, often including long sentences, in the middle or at the end of sentences, to provide informa-tion and argument which he cannot elaborate further in this book.
The actual account of history in Part II begins with an overview of
trade in the Indian Ocean from the end of the fifteenth century with the
entry of the Portuguese, later to be followed by the Dutch and the
Brit-ish. Then he discusses the decline of Mughal power after the death of
revisionist studies which depict the eighteenth century not as an era of decline and disintegration, but as a dynamic period of powerful regional regimes. (p. 244) This regional development, Nakazato further argues , in turn established the basis on which the British could construct their empire relatively easily. (p. 245) This is a very important point which needs to be more fully explored in future.
The next three chapters present lively pictures of the life of different sections of Indian society: urban life (Chapter 6), agrarian society (Chapter 7), and the middle class and women (Chapter 8). In Chapter 6, Nakazato
draws our attention to the development of regional towns in the eigh-teenth century, which again contributed to the relatively smooth colonisation by the British. For instance, the British were able to utilise existing merchant networks and to recruit experienced officers in these regional towns to establish their economic and administrative system in India. These towns, however, became subordinate in the British period to large colonial cities such as Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. As the author himself admits, further research is necessary to understand this process fully.
Chapter 7 is a discussion on agrarian society. The author first
de-scribes the variety of Indian villages. However, he argues, many scholars
now agree that Indian villages of the eighteenth century had in fact a
largely common structure at their basis. His subsequent analysis of agrarian
society and the revenue system is clearly one of the best introductions to this subject written in Japanese. Several points he makes here are re-peated in Part III by Mizushima, such as the importance of local society, a society consisting of more than one village and united through various networks (for instance, networks based on caste, lineage, religious organisation, lease of land and commerce and finance). (p. 326) Nakazato also demonstrates that the British persistently sought to tax certain strata of rural society in exchange for investing them with proprietary rights.
In doing so, the British nullified all other existing multiple rights over lands held by different classes of agrarian society, including sharecrop-pers and agricultural labourers. This striking simplicity of the British system had much to do with their intention to collect revenue securely and effectively and little to do with the Western notion of proprietary rights.
238 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 12, 2000
active debates on these groups among South Asian historians. Nakazato's
brief illustration of women prior to the late nineteenth century is worth
noting, in particular his attempt to reconstruct the life of women in the
middle and lower strata of society. The latter part of this chapter is based
on recent discussion in many English publications on the middle-class (male) discourse of women. Together with Awaya's similar introduction to this subject,2) this section will be useful for Japanese readers who are interested in gender studies.
The last chapter of Part II examines the 1857 revolt and the following process of reconstruction of colonial rule. It also mentions various cases of resistance by different sections of Indian people prior to 1857. As in the case of Part I, the last section of Part II makes us feel that the author should have been given more space to discuss further, a point I shall
return to later in this review.
Part III (Chapters 10-14) focuses on the history of South India exclu-sively, which itself is quite unique among existing books of Indian his-tory in Japan. Furthermore, Mizushima, the author of Part III, adopts a bold strategy here of writing history as a drama with five 'acts' set in five different periods (the Chola period, the Vijayanagar period, the Nayaka period, the colonisation period, and the colonial period). Every act has a
main character, and Mizushima's account moves around this figure, while
also covering the wider context in which the hero was living. With his
graphic and literary description and many quotations from verses,
trav-elogues and diaries, he presents a very entertaining piece for a wide
range of readers.
Act 1 is set in the reign of Rajaraja I (reigned 985-1016) of the Chola period. The author, in the very beginning, introduces the temple built at the king's orders, then gradually broadens his attention to include vari-ous aspects of the kingdom. There is an 'intermission' between this act and the next, enabling the author to fill a time gap between the two periods.
Act 2 has Krishnadevaraya (reigned 1509-1529) of the Vijayanagar empire as its main character. The empire was now in its prime but at the same time, the decentralising power of nayakas (commanders ruling dif-ferent regions in the empire) was also increasing. The chapter starts with colourful descriptions of wrestling, dancers and the Dagara festival, with extensive quotations from contemporary records written by Europeans.
Mizushima's intense focus on specific aspects of the social and cultural
life of the empire and long quotations from contemporary literature,
again make his work very unique. It provides a great contrast to many existing introductory works of Indian history, which place much impor-tance on a balanced account and try to cover many aspects and regions. Mizushima instead chooses several specific topics which he thinks repre-sent the nature of the period best, and explains them at length, thus
leaving in the reader's mind a vivid image of the period. Such a strategy
can result in fixing an image of each period in a particular way; it
some-times even prevents the author from fully discussing other important
changes and events which happened in the same era, for there is only one
hero in each act (thus each period). Mizushima deals with these prob-lems to some extent by introducing intermissions to provide necessary information he cannot include in the acts. In any case, we should re-member that Mizushima's priority is to present lively images and attrac-tive narraattrac-tives, and in this respect, he is undoubtedly successful. We are further reminded of these strengths and possible weaknesses of his strat-egy in the following chapters.
In the intermission following Act 2, the author illustrates the process of decentralisation in the Vijayanagar empire with many nayakas estab-lishing their independent regimes. Mizushima decides to write about this period separately as the `Nayaka period', which, according to him, had a distinctive ambience. It is this point that he elaborates in Act 3, when the next hero, Vijayaraghava Nayaka in Tanjavur (reigned
1634-1673) appears on the stage. Information and discussion here largely come from the joint work by Rao, Shulman and Subramanyam.3) Mizushima introduces long quotations from verses, myths and dramas, which show an 'inclination towards immorality', new notions of the body and the deification of the king.
The leading player in Act 4 is Ananda Ranga Pillai, the interpreter for
the French governor of Pondicherry between 1747 and 1754. His diary
includes important stories for Mizushima in depicting the early stage of
colonisation in India. The detailed and interesting analysis here of a conflict between Christians of different caste origins in Pondicherry and that between right-hand castes and left-hand castes in Madras demon-strates contemporary social changes in South India with the rise of Western power.
240 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 12, 2000
Act 5, the last act, covers the period from the end of the eighteenth
century onwards. Having introduced Lionel Place, a British collector
(1791-1798), Mizushima describes agrarian society in South India in the eighteenth century, then analyses the British revenue system. Some of his arguments here show close similarities with Nakazato's correspond-ing discussion. Together, these two scholars present through this book a clear picture of agrarian society in India around the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries.
At the end of this chapter, Mizushima mentions that the new revenue system (in this case, the raiyatwari system) under British rule divided local society into many pieces of land, with each piece becoming a unit of production and the basis of a social network. As a result, the unity of local society as well as that of a village was now destroyed. (pp. 549-50) Some readers might wonder whether the British revenue policy in fact had such a profound impact on rural society in South India. It might have been further beneficial for us if the author had discussed this point in greater detail.
There is no doubt that this book is one of the best guides to South Asian history available in Japanese. Only when one tries to be extremely
critical, might he or she feel that some regions receive relatively minor attention throughout this book, while some specific areas are, on the contrary, described extensively. This is partly a reflection of the authors' own research interests, but it might also have resulted from the very fact that this book was written by three people. We can easily imagine the difficulty of defining each author's territory. In relation to this book's multiple authorship, many readers will notice a striking difference in the style of writing history in each part. In a sense, this is the attraction of the book, but some people might prefer reading a longer narrative in a consistent style written separately by each author, for it is obvious that all these writers have more information and arguments they would have included had they had more space.
The last few years have seen the publication of similar books on South
Asian history in English, such as Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy by Bose and Jalal and A History of India by Stein.4) These books are widely read in the world today, while the book reviewed here will not reach an audience outside Japan. This means that the au-thors have few chances to obtain comments and criticisms from abroad
about this particular work, which is unfortunate, considering that many non-Japanese scholars in this field would be willing to offer useful and interesting suggestions. This is a common problem that all Japanese scholars have to deal with. It does not, however, lessen the importance of our publishing a book of Indian history in Japanese. This kind of book certainly reaches a large audience inside Japan, including non-specialists of South Asia, many of whom would never read Bose or Stein. Thus the responsibility of the writers of such a book is heavy indeed. In this context, scholars have to make conscious and insistent efforts to present a work of high quality, even though it is published in Japanese and thus will not be exposed to the criticism from specialists abroad. The book reviewed here provides a good example for future writers of books of Indian history in Japan to follow.
Notes
1) In this regard, it should also be noted that recently two other Japanese scholars in this field translated Satish Chandra's Medieval India into Japanese, to the great benefit of many Japanese students and scholars. ONA Yasuyuki and NAGASHIMA
Hiromu (tr.), Satish Chandra, Medieval India: A History Textbook for Class XI, tr. as Chusei Indo no Rekishi (Tokyo: Yamakawa-shuppansha, 1999).
2) AWAYA Toshie, Igirisu Shihai to Indo Shakai (in Japanese) [British Rule and
Indian Society] (Tokyo: Yamakawa-shuppansha, 1998), Chapter 2.
3) Velcheru Narayana Rao, David Shulman and Sanjay Subramanyam, Symbols of
Substance: Court and State in Nayaka Period Tamilnadu (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992).
4) Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997); Burton Stein, A History of India (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998).
Riho Isaka
242 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 12, 2000
■Book Review
■
SATO Masanori, and BHADANI,
B.L., Economy
and Polity of Rajasthan: Study of Kota and Marwar
(17th-19th Century)
Jaipur: Publication Scheme, 1997, v + 180 pp., Rs. 400.
I
This book was written by Japanese and Indian authors, Masanori Sato and B.L. Bhadani, both of whom specialize in the socio-economic history of 17th-19th century Rajasthan. Each chapter is a reprinted or revised version of former contributions to various academic journals, and hence, is an independent article. The contents are below:
Part I: Kota (by M. Sato)
I. The Mughal Impact on the Political and Social Institutions of the Rajputs.
II. The Growth of Towns (Qasbas) of South-eastern Rajasthan under the Mughals: A Case Study of Jhalrapatan,
1650-1820 A.D.
III. The Formative Process of Towns and Market Town/Vil-lages in South-eastern Rajasthan, 1650-1850 A.D. Part II: Marwar (by B.L. Bhadani)
IV. Economic Conditions in Pargana Merta (Rajasthan), c. 1658-63 A.D.
V. The Ruler and the Nobility in Marwar during the reign of Jaswant Singh.
VI. "The Allodial Proprietors" (?): The Bhumias of Marwar. VII. Land Tax and Trade in Agricultural Produce in
Seven-teenth Century Western Rajasthan.
VIII. Role of Merchants and Markets in Agrarian Trade in Sev-enteenth Century Western Rajasthan.
The authors' researches are based on historical documents written in Rajasthani; Sato is mainly using Revenue Records of the Princely State of Kota, and Bhadani using Vigats, Khyats, patta-records (patta-bahi), etc. Such Rajasthani records describing contemporary society of Rajasthan, which cannot be known from Persian sources, have been used by S.P.
Gupta, G.D. Sharma, R.K. Saxena, Dilbagh Singh and others, as well. Thanks to their researches over the past twenty years, the society of Rajasthan around the 17th and 18th centuries has become considerably clearer. In this sense, both authors have undoubtedly made a great aca-demic contribution to the study of Rajasthan history [Sato 1982; Bhadani
1999].
First of all, let me make some comments on the overall composition of this book. Both in Part I and II, the correlation between the chapters are not very clear. Let us examine the problem in Part I. Since a previous publication [Sato 1982], Sato has consistently been arguing that from the
17th century downwards the Kota kingship and the other Raj put states had been strengthening their control over their clansmen and
construct-ing centralized states. This is also mentioned in Chapter 1 of the present book. In Chapters 2 and 3, he states that in the same period new qasbas
and market towns/villages were constructed under conditions of con-siderable economic development. However, he does not mention how the policy of centralization and the increase of qasbas and market towns were related each other. For example, in Chapter 2, Zalim Singh is said
to have newly established the qasba Jhalrapatan and made it the head-quarters of pargana Urmal in order to lay the foundations of his power over the pargana, where his Jhala Rajputs had settled mostly as bhumias (roughly the same as zamindars) (p. 55). It is very interesting to ask how Zalim Singh's activities were related to the centralization of the Kota kingdom.
The correlation or correspondence between Part I and Part II is much
more unclear. Compared with those of Sato, the articles of Bhadani do
not focus on historical changes, except for the reference to the origin of
the patta system (pp.116-17), and are confined to arranging historical information to reproduce the structure of the then society. Because of that, we cannot understand whether there was any historical change in Marwar when many new towns were constructed in Kota. On the other
hand, in Chapters 2 and 3, Sato concentrates his analysis exclusively on the formative process itself of the towns and does not mention their socio-economic structure. Thus, the overall composition of this book is somewhat off balance in the comparison of these two areas.
This insufficiency on both Parts seems to be caused by the limitations imposed by the composition of this book, that is, it is simply a collection
244 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 12, 2000
of independent articles. At any rate, the authors should have added an
explanatory chapter about the relevance between these articles and
spe-cially about the comparison between the society of Kota and that of
Marwar.
II
Commenting on the chapters, I will first mention Sato's argument in Chapter 1 on the cause of the defeats of the Rajputs. One of the main themes of Chapter 1 is the criticism of historians like J.N. Sarkar and A.C. Banerjee for considering the clan system as the only and unchange-able political system of the Rajputs; their stance is said to be apparent in their argument that the Rajputs' defeats by the Mughals and the Marathas were caused by "clan rivalry" or "clan feuds" which made impossible unities or federations of Rajput chiefs of various clans. Sato argues that in the 17th and 18th centuries the Rajput kingdoms had already changed
their principles of political unity from the clan ties or bhai-bandh, to the
master-servant relationship or biradari, and hence, the cause of their
defeat by the Marathas was not their clan rivalry but the competitive
relationship among them caused by the mansabdari system of the Mughals (pp. 20-22).
That the Rajput defeats by the Muslims are ascribed to their clannish pattern of behavior is also a common-sense view in the case of their
defeat by the Ghurids before the 13th century. In fact, however, there
seems to be no corroborative evidence to prove the above view.
Cer-tainly, they had a tendency to regard clannish ties as important, but their
activity was not always based on such clan feeling. It is very important in
examining political history to keep in mind that, however solidly the political rule of a certain group is institutionalized, its political actions in practice do not always follow it, but mainly depend on the surrounding political environment. In this sense, Sato's approach and conclusion about
the above problem is very reasonable. In explaining the famous records on bhai-bandh cited by J. Tod too, he does not hastily conclude from them that the Rajputs had a solid clan system, but carefully considers from the specific political conditions of the time why such records were
written. His approach is very reliable and persuasive as a method of interpreting political documents.
mar-ket towns. The formation of new qasbas happened in the 17th and 18th centuries, where big villages created many petty villages (dakhils) within their own areas (chaks), reduced their chaks and, then, were established as qasbas surrounded by walls. But here are some questions. Was there
any reason why the big villages must have reduced their chaks in order
to be established as qasbas? Did they separate and discard their rural
portions composed of cultivated fields so as to become fully urban areas?
Was this kind of formative process of qasbas peculiar to this period?
These two chapters describe specific processes of the formation of
towns, and are very valuable fruits of research presenting the cases of the
Kota region. In this sense, they must contribute to the analysis of the
economic development of 18th century Northern India, to which many
historians have recently given great attention. However, in these two
chapters Sato confines his research to following only surface processes of
the formation of qasbas and market towns. Therefore, probably, these
two chapters cannot offer any answer to the question why such processes
occurred in this period. His statements that agricultural production,
com-merce and industry were progressing with the increase of towns and
villages (pp. 52, 63, 73, 83-84, etc.) are too abstract to understand the mechanism of the process. As he says that his next research topic will be the economic and social structure of qasbas and market towns, so we expect in his next articles his total explanation about this historical
phe-nomenon.
Chapter 4 is a statistical analysis of the pargana Merta from the Marwar-ra-pargana-ri- Vigat of Muhnot Nainsi, and Bhadani points out there that the population of the town of Merta in the 17th century was much higher than in later times, nearly double the population in 1961. We still need more discussion before coming to any conclusion to what extent
Table VI (p. 101) expresses the real condition of the population of Merta, because it can naturally be supposed that there were serious differences between the way of collecting statistics of the Vigat and that of the
Census of 1961. At any rate, if his conclusion is right, is there any
relation between this trend of urban population in pargana Merta and
the tendency for qasbas and market towns in Kota to increase?
In Chapters 7 and 8, discussing grain trade and markets, Bhadani
presupposes that the peasants sold only surplus grain. He calculates that
246 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies , 12, 2000
and insists that a large part of the surplus ultimately took the form of
commodities. Moreover, he recognizes that the financial and credit
busi-ness flourished and moneylenders often invested in peasants in 17th
century Marwar (pp. 172-73). Even in such conditions in the later Mughal Period, did only the surplus of peasant production circulate in the grain markets? Did the peasants really not change their crops according to the prices in the grain markets?
III
Lastly, let me make some comments on the topic relevant to the study of the history before the 13th century, which is my special field of study . As mentioned earlier, Sato supposes that the historical change of the Rajput polity in the Mughal period was from a kind of federation of
chiefs of the same clan to more centralized polity based on a
master-servant relationship. On the other hand, Bhadani, paying attention to the
nature of land distribution, recognizes in Maldeo's policy in the early
16th century a serious change of the bhai-bant system in which land was
distributed among the same clan members: Maldeo gave hereditary pattas only to those who accepted his suzerainty. Under the influence of the Mughal administration, the Marwar kingdom adopted a new patta sys-tem in which pattas were transferable and grantees had an obligation to
maintain cavalry for military service to the kings (Chapter 5) .
Both Sato and Bhadani thus appear to suppose a change from "a clan monarchy" to a centralized state in the Mughal period, and, to a greater
or less degree, this image of historical change seems to be accepted by
almost all the present scholars of the history of the Mughal period. Here
the starting point of this change is supposed to have been "a clan
mon-archy" based on the bhai-bandh in the early 16th century. However, as far as I know about the Rajput dynasties before the 13th century, like the
Gurjara-Pratiharas, the Cahamanas, the Paramaras and the Caulukyas, it is very difficult to see the clan system in the polity of the early medieval Rajputs. Certainly we can find many examples of land assignment to close relatives of the kings (not the royal clansmen) in the early medieval epigraphical records, but this pattern of land assignment was not pecu-liar to the Rajput dynasties but appears to be seen in any kingdom of early medieval India. Moreover, there are many more examples of land assignment to the members of other clans. Some scholars also doubt the
existence of "a clan monarchy" before the 15th or 16th century [Saran 1952: 4; Kolff 1990: 71-116; Tambs-Lyche 1997: 35-41].
If the early medieval Rajput system was not based on clan ties, we can suppose two hypotheses about the historical process of the Rajput polity. One is that the Rajputs transformed their non-clan polity into clan polity at the beginning of the 16th century or before that, and again into a non-clan polity in the Mughal period, which might have been more highly unified than that of before the 13th century. The other is that "a clan monarchy" was merely an ideal accepted among the Rajputs and had never existed as a real polity since the emergence of Rajputs around the 7th century. Which concept is right depends on how we consider the actual political system of the Rajput kingdoms in the early 16th century. However there are only a few studies on the then Rajput polity, among which G.D. Sharma's researches are probably representative [Sharma
1975; 1977:1-24]. His researches though seem to be nothing more than introductory, probably because of the limitations of the available sources, which appear to be very meager compared to those of the late Mughal period. At any rate, is it possible that neither bhai-bandh nor bhai-bant was an actual principle of the state system even in the early 16th century? This is one of the most crucial questions about the late medieval Rajputs which I, a student of early medieval Indian history, cannot but entertain.
References
Bhadani, B.L., 1999, Peasants, Artisans and Entrepreneurs: Economy of Marwar in the
Seventeenth Century. Jaipur: Rawat Publications.
Kolff, D.H.A., Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Mar-ket in Hindustan, 1450-1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Saran, P., 1952, "The feudal system of Rajputana," P. Saran, Studies in Medieval Indian History. pp. 1-23, Delhi: Ranjit Printers & Publishers.
Sato, Masanori, 1982, Mugaru ki Indo no kokka to shakai (State and Society in Mughal India). Tokyo: Shunjusha.
Sharma, G.D., 1975, "Concept of kingship and the Marwar nobility during the 16th century," Proceedings of Indian History Congress, 36th Session (Aligarh), pp. 157-65. Sharma, G.D., 1977, Rajput Polity: A Study of Politics and Administration of the State of
Marwar, 1638-1749. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers & Distributors.
Tambs-Liche, H., 1997, Power, Profit and Poetry: Traditional Society in Kathiawar, Western India. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers & Distributors.
Masahiko Mita
248 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 12, 2000
■
Book Review■
TANAKA Masakazu and TACHIKAWA
Musashi
(eds.), Living with Sakti: Gender, Sexuality and Religion
in South Asia. Senri Ethnological Studies no. 50.
Senri: National Museum of Ethnology, 293 pp.
This is a collection of nine articles discussing gender and sexuality in
South Asia, as indicated in the subtitle. The main topics of the articles
include goddesses, the pantheon, myth, ritual, ceremony, festival, caste
and others, in other words, all contributors deal with the goddess / woman
with reference to religion. The theme of the editor's introduction and
the titles of the nine articles are as follows.
Introduction: Writing on Gender, Sexuality and Religion in South Asia (Masakazu Tanaka)
Part I. Hindu Goddesses in Texts
1. Hindu Thinking on Sakti: A Historical Perspective (Musashi Tachikawa)
2. The Autumn Goddess Festival: Described in the Puranas (Shingo Einoo)
3. The Warrior Goddess in the Devimahatmya (Yak() Yokochi) Part II. Goddess Festivals in Context
4. The Navardtri Festival in Chidambaram, South India (Masakazu Tanaka)
5. The Transformation of Sakti: Gender and Sexuality in the Fes-tival of Goddess Ramachandi (Akio Tanabe)
6. The Mariai Village Festival in Maharashtra (Timothy Fitzgerald) Part III. Gender and Sexuality in Rural India
7. Women and Tradition in India: Construction of Subjectivity and Control of Female Sexuality in the Ritual of the First Men-struation (Yumiko Tokita-Tanabe)
8. Rethinking the Ambiguous Character of Hindu Women (Yasumasa Sekine)
9. Rituals, Service Castes, and Women: Rites of Passage and the Conception of Auspiciousness and Inauspiciousness in North-ern India (Yako Yagi)
According to the editors' preface, this work is a result of an interdisci-plinary attempt between Indologists and anthropologists, and is also a by-product of the joint-project on "Goddess studies" held in the Na-tional Museum of Ethnology from 1991-1994. The fact that the con-tributors include relatively "younger scholars" indicates a new direction in Japanese South Asian studies. Although the subtitle mentions "South Asia", all the articles are centralized on India, except that Tachikawa
discusses the system of the Hindu pantheon and the metaphysical
significance of the goddess in a wider context.
In the introduction Tanaka insists that this collection not only
pro-vides new data on gender, sexuality and religion, but also new
interpre-tations along with a historical perspective, which are related to the issues
of Orientalism initially advocated by E. W. Said. Tanaka also analyzes
"Japanese versions of Orientalism" found in the publications of intellec -tuals during World War II (1941-1945) in the main part of the introduc-tion. Even in contemporary Japanese works on India it is not difficult to discern traces of such images of India, Hinduism and Hindu women. He
emphasizes that "the following articles more or less attempt to overcome
such problems and shed light on new directions in writing about South
Asia".
The first part consists of three articles by Indologists on the basis of
Sanskrit material.
Tachikawa's article, according to Tanaka, plays the role of another
introduction to this volume and enables readers to understand the
devel-opment of the goddess cults and the concept of lakti in the history of
Hinduism. Tachikawa explains the system of the Hindu pantheon mainly
by focusing on the triad of Visnu, Siva and Brahma and says that, espe-cially in the traditions of Visnu and Siva, the power (sakti) of the gods came to be identified with their female partners. Moreover, with the help of the "archetype theory" of Jung, Tachikawa clarifies that while the
primary matter from which the world arises can be regarded as the archetype "mother" in orthodox Hindu philosophy such as Samkhya, the mother-goddess in Hinduism corresponds with both the power in-volved in the self-formation of the world and the matter from which the
world is created.
Depending on the descriptions found in the Puranas, Einoo discusses
250 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 12, 2000
long been widely performed in the Hindu world under the names of Durga , Navardtri, Dasai, etc. According to Einoo, the goddess rituals in the Puranas related to this festival can be classified into four groups: (1) those centered on the worship of the goddess, (2) those including the honoring of young girls, (3) those including a rite for destroying a dough effigy of one's enemy, (4) those including the worship of weapons. Some rituals included in the first category can be specified as a rite for awaking
the goddess. Einoo's article is not only a elaborated examination on the
basis of a wide range of material, but also provides the historical
back-ground for the following articles by Yokochi and Tanaka.
Yokochi's article, which deals with Goddesses, considers the process
of the establishment of the Goddesses in the Devimahiitmya, one of the
most important works of the goddess cult of Hinduism, in the history of
Sanskrit literature. Yokochi enumerates the descriptions of Goddesses found in the Rg-veda, Taittiri-ya-eiranyaka, Harivamia Mahabharata, Puranas and others to show the "amalgamation of goddesses" to one Great Goddess. With reference to Parpola's recent studies, she suggests
the possibility that Mahisasuramardini, the buffalo-slaying goddess,
origi-nates from a goddess in the Indus civilization. The goddess in the
Devimaheitmya, Yokochi says, receives the influence of Vindhyavasini, a
guardian deity of Mt. Vindhya, and Yokochi infers a royal goddess cer-emony to purify weapons prior to a military campaign for its back-ground. It should be noted that Yokochi pays much attention to ar-chaeological findings as well as Sanskrit material.
The second part comprises three articles on goddess festivals from the
viewpoint of anthropology.
Tanaka's article deals with the navarfitri festival in Chidambaram, Tamilnadu. Tanaka verifies the discourse that this festival is regarded as "a typical women's festival" . He explains both the domestic navariitri performed by a priest class and the navareitri festival in Nataraja Temple
in a comparative perspective. As for the domestic navareitri, he
elabo-rates a ritual device, kolu, which can be interpreted as a Hindu cosmos
centered on the Goddess. The kolu also plays a complementary role to
the temple, which is violated by chaos through animal sacrifices etc. Moreover, Tanaka relates sexuality to the fact that the nighttime rites performed by women shift to daytime pfijii by men, as the domestic navaratri festival proceeds. Tanaka also indicates the necessity of
intro-ducing a social perspective to analyze the variety of navareitri festivals rather than a symbolic interpretation.
Tanabe focuses on the festival of the goddess Ramachandi, a local
goddess in Orissa. He first tries to interpret the cosmological symbolism
represented in the procedure of the festival, then considers the fact that
the particular historical background and knowledge reproduced in the
festival reconfirm the socio-political order of the village. Tanabe pays
special attention to the transformation of lakti in the process of the
festival. He explains that it transforms itself from an ambivalent and
dangerous power to a benevolent and protective power and finally comes
into symbolic union with royalty. Through the Ramachandi festival, the
village people come to share a common cosmology and, at the same time,
they strengthen the historical identity and social order peculiar to this
village. Tanabe concludes that the issue of gender and sexuality in the
ritual are related not only to the symbolic contents of the ritual, but also
to the larger power relations behind the scenes in continuously changing
historical contexts.
Fitzgerald deals with the worship of Maridi, a local goddess in
Maharashtra, who is not a member of the common Hindu pantheon and
does not possess any mythological background. Where Fitzgerald did his fieldwork, many local goddesses like Mari-di co-exist and historical devo-tees to the goddesses are also worshipped. Local people believe that Mariai is identical with Mahakali (Man.gkali) and that she represents
Mahakali's impure aspect, though the high caste priests and benefactors of Mahakali temple deny it. Mari-di is said to have a strong connection to the scheduled castes, but high caste people also worship her and are involved in the festival with their own role. Maridi occupies boundaries geographically and symbolically, and this fact becomes more obvious in her festival. According to Fitzgerald's interpretation, the festival sym-bolically represents, reverses, dissolves and recreates an ideal order of
social relations. However, the situation became more complicated
be-cause one scheduled caste, Mahar, which used to be connected with
MariE's worship and festival in great depth, converted to Ambedkar
Buddhism.
The third part also includes three articles from the viewpoint of an-thropology and they all take up the subject of domestic rituals concern-ing women.
252 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 12, 2000
Tokita-Tanabe discusses a first menstruation ritual investigated in
Orissa village. In her introduction, she indicates the problem that the
issues regarding women in India have emphasized either the problems of
gender inequality and the asymmetric power relation between men and
women, or the rich cultural-symbolic world of women related to the
term "lakti". These two approaches, she says, should be combined in
order to grasp the overall complexities regarding the construction of female "subjectivity". In addition, further attention should be paid to the transformation of the traditions regarding women in modernization and urbanization in India. Tokita-Tanabe clarifies the procedure of the
first menstruation ritual based on her field work, and she points out the
existence of a strong women's community in the village life. According
to her analysis, the village people categorize the world into "home" and
"outside"
, and these two categories correspond to women and men re-spectively. Tokita-Tanabe summarizes that the first menstruation ritual constructs women's subjectivity where female creative power is celebrated by a community of women acting as autonomous subjects of action and at the same time women become subject to hierarchical relations based on gender difference.
Sekine's article also deals with the first menstruation ritual (coming-of-age ceremony for girls, in Sekine's term), surveyed in Tamil. Sekine
points out that the dichotomy of positive and negative aspects is insufficient
to understand Hindu women and he suggests introducing "pollution"
ideology to overcome this insufficiency, as well as Dumont's "pure /
impure" ideology. When discussing the first menstruation ritual in Tamil, which shares many common elements with the Orissa version intro-duced by Tokita-Tanabe, Sekine attaches much importance to the seg-regation of girls in the process of the ritual. Through this stage, the girl's"lakti" in menarche
, which has its origin in chaos corresponding to the
marginal point between culture and nature, transforms into a productive
and reproductive power, or sacred fertility, after being encoded to
cul-ture. Sekine suggests distinguishing "purification for creation", in which he finds positive meaning, from "purification for elimination". In his
previous publications, Sekine has repeatedly advocated his ideology of
"pollution" to
overcome Dumont's "pure / impure" ideology, which has
been strongly criticized as limited to social aspects. Hindu women's
"am-biguity" is the ideal exemplification to illustrate the different dimensions
between "pollution" ideology and "pure / impure" ideology.
Yagi's article investigates a few rites of passage performed in an Uttar Pradesh village. Yagi also indicates the insufficiency of "pure / impure" ideology in analyzing the roles of particular castes and women involved in these rites, and she emphasizes the need to focus upon
"auspicious-ness / inauspicious"auspicious-ness" ideology to overcome it. Through the three
kinds of rites, marriage, childbirth and funeral, Yagi notices that the
Brahman priests engage in the elimination of inauspicious affairs, while
women of low castes perform songs and plays related to auspiciousness. In conclusion, she clarifies that the social hierarchy does not correspond with the ideology of "auspiciousness" and "inauspiciousness". However, Yagi admits the invalidity of this ideology to explain the positivein-volvement of women in the rites, and she ascribes it to the ambivalence of women's reproductive powers, impurity and fecundity.
As I have outlined so far, this volume shows the variety of studies concerning goddess / women in the Hindu world. By and large, most articles should be the latest results from the corresponding field. From the position of Indology, the articles in the first part, which illustrate the scheme of the goddess cult in a historical perspective, demonstrate the standard of this theme in Japan. The articles from the anthropological approach contribute to provide data and theory based on recent field
surveys in various areas.
It is astonishing that all the articles, except Tanaka's introduction and
Tachikawa's one, deal with rituals. Although interest in ritual seems to
have fallen out of fashion in anthropology, Japanese anthropologists who study South Asia still maintain a great concern with ritual. This may be due to the fact that ritual is one of the limited topics that can be shared by scholars of both anthropology and Indology.
I should emphasize that this collection is the first attempt at compiling the results of the studies on goddess / women in India. As the editors intend, the articles written by young scholars may display one of the tendencies in this field in Japan.
In the remaining paragraphs I would like to discuss two points re-garding the editorial policy that the editors took in this work.
First, though the editors insist that this is the result of a joint project between two genres, or the "by-product" of a particular project held in the National Museum Ethnology, it is surprising that the contributors
254 Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 12, 2000
pay very limited attention to each other. Some articles deal with the same, but not shared material, topic, theory: i. e. navaratri festival (Einoo, Tanaka, Tanabe), ritual of first menstruation (Tokita-Tanabe, Sekine), royal ceremony (Einoo, Yokochi, Tanabe), goddess myth (Yokochi, Tanaka, Fitzgerald) etc. Dumont's "pure / impure" ideology seems to be
still a disputable topic for the anthropologists specializing in India, but
Fitzgerald, Tokita-Tanabe, Sekine and Yagi discuss it independently
without referring to each other's results. "Sakti" , which is included in
the main title of this volume, should be one of the most important
key-words, but Tachikawa's philosophical scheme was not reflected in the
following articles while Tanaka allocates it as "another introduction" to
the whole volume.
Second, it is rather difficult to recognize the character of gender
stud-ies, or feminism here. It may be true that the editors never define this
collection as the result of gender studies, but most readers would expect
the latest studies of "gender and sexuality" in South Asia as the subtitle
reads. The editors, at least, should have clarified where this attempt can be allocated (or cannot be allocated) in the trend of gender studies.
These points, I infer, are caused by editorial policy, because most of the articles (at least seven) had already been published in different jour-nals and books in Japanese. Some of them were, of course, revised or / and expanded before the compilation of this volume, but it is also recog-nized that some are just translated from Japanese to English with minor corrections. It is quite problematic whether this is really the result of
"interdisciplinary studies" on gender and sexuality in a strict sense . We can admit that one of the characteristics of South Asian studies in Japan is a close link between anthropologists and Indologists, as Tanaka indicates in his introduction, but, on the other hand, many participants in such a joint project enumerate the difficulties, discordance, or some-times barrenness in the discussion. The editors of this collection seem to put aside the effort to dissolve these problems here. This volume, I regret to say, can only be defined as an anthology of recent studies on goddess / women in Indian Studies in Japan.
Masahide Mori
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森 雅 秀 『マ ン ダ ラ の 密 教 儀 礼 』 東 京:春 秋 社,1997年,vi+231+21頁,2,800円 この 書 は イ ン ド学 の研 究 に新 た な地 平 を 開拓 して くれ た.著 者 森 雅 秀 氏 は長 年 に わ た りマ ン ダ ラ を 中心 と した 密 教 儀 礼 の研 究 に邁 進 して きた.そ の 氏 の研 究 成 果 が 集 大 成 され,こ の 著 書 と して 結 実 し た. 「仏 た ちの 聖 な る世 界 」 「宇 宙 の 縮 図 」 で あ り 「悟 りの た め の 補 助 手 段 」 とい う マ ン ダ ラの 定 義 は観 想 上 の マ ン ダ ラ を想 定 した もの で あ り,儀 礼 に先 立 っ て実 際 に描 か れ る儀 礼 の マ ン ダ ラ に対 して は 適 用 で きな い.「 しか し,観 想 上 のマ ン ダ ラの もつ イ メ ー ジ は儀 礼 の た め の マ ン ダ ラ とい う設計 図 が あ っ て は じめ て 生 み 出 さ れ る」(p.31)こ と を マ ン ダ ラ研 究 の 歴 史 を 丹 念 に た ど り,「 第1章 マ ンダ ラ とは 何 か」 で 明 快 に示 し, 「儀 礼 か らマ ン ダ ラ を と ら え直 す とい う試 み 」(p .36)に 着 手 す る. イ ン ド密 教 に お い て マ ン ダ ラ を用 い た儀 礼 は 弟 子 の 入 門 儀 礼 で あ る ア ビ シ ェ ー カ と 神 像 や 寺 院 の 完 成 式 プ ラ テ ィ シ ュ タ ー のふ た つ で あ る とい う(PP.31f.).こ れ らふ た つ の儀 礼 は 単 に イ ン ド密 教 に お い て の み 見 い だ され る もの で は な く,ヴ ェー ダの 祭 式 か ら始 ま る広 い意 味 で の イ ン ドの 宗 教 儀 礼 に対 応 す る 要 素 が み られ,「 第2章 イ ン ドの 宗 教 儀 礼 」 に お い て イ ン ドの 宗 教 儀 礼 の 展 開 と一 般 的特 質 を解 明 して い く.そ の 特 質 を,(一)神 々 との 交 流 を 目 的 とす る,(二)言 葉 が 重 要 な役 割 を果 た す,(三)ユ ニ ッ ト 構 造 で 形 成 され る,の 三 点 に 要 約 し(p.45),特 にユ ニ ッ ト構 造 とい う特 質 を,ヒ ン ドゥー 儀 礼 と密 教 儀 礼 を例 に と り説 明 してい く. 「第3章 マ ン ダ ラ をつ くる」 は聖 な る空 間 と して の マ ン ダ ラ を描 く準 備 作 業 と しての 土 地 の 選 定 と浄 化 の儀 礼 を扱 うが,絶 え ず ヒ ン ドゥー 儀礼 と して の 建 築 儀 礼 との 対 比 に お い て 記 述 と議 論 が 展 開 され る.「 第4章 マ ンダ ラ の図 像 学 」 にお い て マ ンダ ラ研 究 者 と して の著 者 の真 骨 頂 を見 る こ とが で き る.「 マ ン ダ ラ は大 き く分 け て,全 体 を取 り 囲 む 外 周 部 と,仏 た ちの 住 居 で あ る楼 閣 とい う建 造 物,そ して楼 閣 内 部 の 内 陣 の 三 つ の 部分 に分 か れ る」(p.120).そ れ ら三 つ の部 分 は 「墨打 ち の儀 軌 」 に従 い線 が 描 か れ, 「彩 色 の 儀 軌 」 に よ り五 色 の 顔 料 を用 い て 色 分 け され て い く.「 墨 打 ち の 儀 軌 」 にお い て,ヴ ェ ー ダ祭 式 文 献 の シ ュ ル バ ・ス ー トラ を思 わせ る作 図法 が もち い られ,複 雑 な マ ン ダ ラ の絵 柄 が 正 確 に再 現 さ れ て い く(p.123,125,131,133,135,137).こ の よ う に して 完 成 さ れ た複 雑 で 異 様 に思 え る マ ンダ ラ の絵 柄 は,複 数 の視 点 か ら眺 め た形 態 を平 面 に投 影 した 結 果 で あ る と され,「 宇 宙 全体 の創 造,楼 閣 の構 築,そ して マ ンダ ラ256 南 ア ジ ア研 究 第12号(2000年) の 中尊 か らの 諸 尊 の 拡 散 」 とい う観 想 の プ ロ セ ス に対 応 して い る とい う こ と を明 示 し て くれ る(p-152). 「第5章 聖 別 の 儀礼 」 で は,こ の よ うに して描 か れ た マ ン ダ ラ を用 い た ふ た つ の儀 礼 ア ビ シ ェ ー カ とプ ラテ ィ シ ュ タ ーが 詳 述 され る.目 隠 しを され た弟 子 が マ ン ダ ラ に落 と した花 の位 置 か ら弟 子 の 本 尊 を決 定 す る投 華 得 仏 と,弟 子 に水 瓶 の 水 を注 ぐ灌 頂 の ふ た つ の部 分 か ら な る,「大 日経 」 の 記 述 す る,最 も単 純 な ア ビ シ ェー カ か ら(pp.159-162),「 金 剛頂 経 」 の描 く秘 儀,再 生 儀礼 の 要 素 が 加 わ っ た プ ロ セ ス(PP.162-166), さ ら に複 雑 に な る 後期 密 教 の ア ビシ ェ ー カが 描 か れ る(pp.166-170).つ い で,尊 像 の 安 置 儀礼 を中 心 と した プ ラ テ ィシ ュ ター を議 論 して(PP.170-174),基 本 的 に こ のふ た つ の 儀 礼 は,構 造 的 に類 似 性 を示 して い る こ とを 明 らか に す る(PP .174178). 広 くイ ン ドの儀 礼 を見 る と,灌 頂 とい う儀 礼 行 為 に特 徴 付 け られ る もの と して国 王 即 位 儀 礼 が あ る.ま た プ ラテ ィ シ ュ タ ー と称 さ れ る一群 の儀 礼 が 最後 期 の ヴ ェー ダ文 献 以 降 イ ン ドの ポ ス ト ・ヴ ェ ー ダ の諸 潮 流 に お い て さま ざ まな展 開 を示 しつ つ 伝 え ら れ て き た.著 者 は これ らの 非 仏 教 儀 礼 を綿 密 に検 討 し,国 王 即 位 儀 礼 とは 灌 頂 の 要 素 しか 共 有 して い な い こ と(P.180),ま た,灌 頂 を重 要 な 要 素 とす る ヒ ン ドゥー 教 の プ ラテ ィ シ ュ タ ー を弟 子 の入 門式 に 応 用 した の が ア ビ シ ェ ー カ で,仏 像 の 完 成 式 と して 受 け継 い だ の が 密教 版 の プ ラテ ィ シュ ター で あ る とい う(p.188)極 め て 重 要 な 指 摘 を 提 示 す る. 本 書 の 最 後 を飾 る 「第6章 拡 大 す るマ ン ダ ラ」 で は,オ リ ッサ 州 に残 る仏 教 遺 跡 の ス トゥ ーパ や,ネ パ ー ルの 各 地 の寺 院 の 配 置 にマ ン ダ ラ の実 際 を 読 み 解 く(pp.195-207).最 後 に 「マ ンダ ラ に埋 め 尽 く され て い る」 チ ベ ッ ト南 部 の ペ ンコ ル ・チ ュ ー デ の仏 塔 に読 者 を招 き入 れ,「 空 間 の コ スモ ス化 」 と して の マ ン ダラ の密 教 儀 礼 をみ ご と に再 現 して くれ る. こ の よ うに 本 書 は 「儀 礼 か らマ ン ダ ラ を と ら え直 す と い う試 み」 を新 た に 導 入 した こ と,そ れ 以 上 に,そ の密 教 儀 礼 を絶 え ず よ り広 い イ ン ドの 宗 教 儀 礼 の文 脈 で と らえ 直 す試 み を して い る とい う意 味 で,冒 頭 に 述べ た よ うに 「イ ン ド学 の 研 究 に新 た な 地 平 を開 拓 」 した と評 価 した い.「 儀 礼 の 起 源 や 歴 史 的 な 変 遷 の解 明 こ そ,儀 礼 の 理 解 」(p.iv)で あ る とい う立場 に拘 泥 す る私 に と り,真 に歓 迎 した い 労 作 で あ る. PP.181-188に お い て 著 者 は ヒ ン ドゥー儀 礼 と して の プ ラ テ ィ シ ュ タ ー を分 析 す る. プ ラ テ ィシ ュ ター の 最 も早 い 記 述 は グ リフ ヤ ス ー トラ補 遺 文 献 に属 す る文 献 に見 られ る.そ の 後 プ ラー ナ 諸 文 献,そ して シ ヴ ァ派,ヴ ィ シュ ヌ 派,シ ャ ク テ ィ派 な どに 大 別 され る タ ン トラ 的 な ヒ ン ドゥー教 の 諸 文 献 に お い て も扱 わ れ て い く.そ れ は勿 論, 著 者 が本 書 で議 論 した よ う に密 教 文 献 の テ ー マ で もあ った.ま た ジ ャ イ ナ教 も類 似 の
