Reviews Of Diffeent Books

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

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REVIEWS
of comparative mythology which will continue to provoke both approval and opposition. Puhvel's judicious and careful exposition which contains many personal views is to be welcomed as a very lucid introduction to the study of this fascinating topic.
Australian National University
J. W. DE JONG
Gilgul. Essays on transformation, revolution and permanence in the history of religions. Dedicated to R. J. Zwi Werblowsky (Supplements to Numen L). Édited by S. Shaked, D. Shulman, G. G. Strousma. Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1987. VIII, 326 pp. 108 guilders. ISBN 90 04 08509 2.
This collection of twenty-two essays is dedicated to R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, a well-deserved tribute to a scholar who has been active in many fields of religious studies. It is therefore not surprising to see that this volume comprises several articles relating to Indian and Iranian religions. Jan C. Heesterman writes on the essential ambivalence of sacrifice which results from the interplay of self-sacrifice and sacrifice by an outside agent in "Self-sacrifice in Vedic ritual” (pp. 91-106). Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty examines the metaphor of the shepherd in Hinduism and Christianity and shows that Christianity emphasizes the positive aspect of the shepherd while Hinduism emphasizes the negative: "The good and evil shepherd" (pp. 169--191). David Shulman compares the passage where Sugrīva reveals to Rāma the jewels that Sītā had desperately cast to earth while she was being carried off to Lankā by the demon Rāvana in Vālmīki's Rāmāyana and in Kampan's Tamil version of the Rāmāyana and points out the differences between the two texts: “the hero of the Sanskrit epic moves, in his consciousness, from the level of man to that of god .... The Tamil text, with its theistic axiology, stresses the opposite direction – that of God's similarity to man": "The anthropology of the avatar in Kampan's Irāmāvataram" (pp. 270-287). Saul Shaked traces the changes undergone by the two sets of First Man figures, Yima (Jamshid) with his associates, and Gaya Maretan (Gayömard) with the Bull and the first human couple Mashye and Mashyāne: "First man, first king. Notes on Semitic-Iranian syncretism and Iranian mythological transformations" (pp. 238–256). In “Religious visions of the end of the world” (pp. 125–137) Joseph Kitagawa treats briefly of the concepts of Saosyant, the Cakravartin, Maitreya and Amitabha. He writes that Heinrich Zimmer has traced the concept of the Cakravartin not only to the earliest Vedic, but also to the pre-Vedic, pre-Aryan tradition of India,
Indo-Iranian Journal 32: 1989.