Reviews Of Different Books

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REVIEWS 85 years his activity resulted in a continuous flow of articles, monographs and editions and translations. It was of course not possible to reproduce all his articles, contributions to encyclopedias and reviews. The editor decided to omit the articles on poetics and aesthetics, which have recently been published by Hans Losch, and also editions and translations of Jain texts which appeared in periodicals. With one exception, Jacobi's review of Garbe's Bhagavadgita, reviews have been omitted entirely. Also omitted are the many articles, contributed by Jacobi to Hasting's Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. However, almost all of Jacobi's articles, with the exception of the two fields mentioned above, have been included. They are systematically grouped together into the following sections: Sprachwissenschaft; Wortstudien; Metrik; Literaturgeschichte; Wissenschaftliche Literatur; Philosophie; Religion; Astronomie, Chronologie und Verwandtes; Inschriften; Verschiedenes; Nachrufe, Biographisches; Uber Hermann Jacobi. Jacobi's important articles on Prakrit, metrics, the epic, philosophy, Jainism, astronomy and chronology are all to be found in these two volumes. It is certainly superfluous to enumerate their titles because they are well-known to the Indologist. For the publications, published before 1920, the editor has based himself upon Kirfel's Verzeichnis der bis zum 11. Februar 1920 erschienenen Schriften Hermann Jacobis. Kirfel's Verzeichnis, which we have not been able to consult, seems to omitted the second of Jacobi's two articles on the Mitanni gods in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society: "The Antiquity of Vedic culture" (JRAS, 1910, pp. 456-464).1 One regrets that both articles are not reproduced here, not only on account of the importance of the problems discussed, but also because Oldenberg's reactions to Jacobi's theory of the Vedic character of the Mitanni gods ("On the Antiquity of Vedic culture", JRAS, 1909, pp. 1095-1100; "The Antiquity of Vedic culture", JRAS, 1910, pp. 846-850) have been included in Oldenberg's Kleine Schriften (pp. 802-812). The editor, Bernhard Kolver, deserves high praise for his excellent choice. One must also be grateful to him for the systematic bibliography of Jacobi's publications and the detailed indices (pp. 1133-1156). Australian National University J. W. de Jong .E. A. S. Butterworth, The Tree at the Navel of the Earth. Berlin, Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1970. xii + 239 pp with 31 plates. DM. 68, 1. In the concluding paragraph of this book the author writes: "This book has done no more than allude to the kingly, priestly and communal aspects of the Tree of Life and World Tree. Others have written on these matters with learning and insight. We have tried to say something about that inner nature of the Tree and its symbols of the centre of the earth and the light in the zenith which made it a figure of the source of life and the heart of the universe. It is a symbol with many aspects, and a number of forms, which could be used, like the Christian Cross, even by enemies as proper to the cause of either side ..." (p. 226f.). In 1966 Butterworth published a book on Some Traces of the Pre-Olympian World in Greek Literature and Myth. In the book here under review he still follows more or less the same track, his aim being to demonstrate that we must turn to Sumer and Akkad to discover the "inner meaning" of the Tree of Life. In that culture area the 1 Cf. L. Renou, Bibliographie vedique (Paris, 1931), No. 128-10. 2 "Some Ancient Jaina Works", The Modern Review, Dec. 1914, pp. 574-577; "Some aspects of Jainism", Mahabodhi 22, 1914, pp. 83-90; "The metaphysics and ethics of the Jainas", Jaina Antiquary 10, 1944, pp. 32-40 (see Karl H. Potter's Bibliography of Indian Philosophies, 1970, Nos. 4850 and 4931). On p. XI line 3 read: S. 67-78.