Book Reviews

Author(s): J W De Jong
Publisher: J W De Jong

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REVIEWS
from the cases that Oguibénine quotes and comments upon (with which I humbly agree) the author's proposals would have received more credit if the bases for the general criteria the distinction was made upon, had been confirmed. I believe that certain parameters — at least as a working hypothesis — can be proposed: very often the rși – in the hymns that have been preserved up to now, leaving aside the conditioning that may have determined the constitution of this samhitā instead of others – seems to fix his attention on cosmogonic facts, on how history was made, on a Varunian lato sensu environment (cosmic mountain, primordial waters, etc.). F. B. J. Kuiper (IIJ 8, 2, 1964) dealt masterfully with all this.
As regards the comparative, more strictly Indo-Europeanist aspects of the work, the author generally shows admirable caution. The problems raised by comparative and/or reconstructive practice are too complex to be even simply summarised here, therefore I limit myself to making mention of that which, in my opinion, is one of the most frequent conditionings: comparison is generally regarded as acceptable inasmuch as the languages involved in the cultural equations are, in fact, related. The transfer from a linguistic environment to a cultural environment – however legitimate – is not to be considered a fact rather a possibility where the dividing line between resemblance due to historical reasons and typological resemblance is very ambiguous (the case regarding Pindar dealt with by Oguibénine (p. 173] is a good example of such ambiguity).
Once more, then, B. Oguibénine has provided scholars with excellent material for thought and study.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
de Heusch, Luc: Sacrifice in Africa, Manchester University Press, 1985. Hallpike, C. R.: The Foundations of Primitive Thought, Oxford, 1979.
Università di Trieste
FRANCO CREVATIN
Ditte König, Das Tor zur Unterwelt. Mythologie und Kult des Termitenhügels in der schriftlichen und mündlichen Tradition Indiens (Beiträge zur SüdasienForschung Südasien-Institut Universität Heidelberg, Bd. 97). Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH., 1985. XII, 391 pp. DM 66,-.
The subtitle expresses exactly the scope of this study of the termite hill. Ditte König has consulted an impressive range of Sanskrit sources and of anthropological
Indo-Iranian Journal 31 (1988).