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Review
MĀYA DIVINE AND HUMAN--Tuen Goudriaan (Published by Motilal Banarasidass, Delhi, First Edition : 1978; Price Rs 100, pages xiv+516).
This book is a study of magic and its religious foundations in Sans. krit texts with particular attention to a fragment on Vişnu's Māyā edited, as No. 450 in the collection of Balinese hymns and fragments 'Stuti and stava' edited and translated by T. Goudriaan and C. Hooykass, (Ams. terdam, 1971). This fragment of 21 Slokas interspersed with prose mentras called Mahāmāyā' describes the supranormal effects of meditation on Vişnu's Māya, herein understood as the god's ability to change bis appearance at will.
As the author says, "The division of the book into six chapters has evolved in a natural way from the grouping of the material. The third chapter serves as a nucleus : it contains a new edition and translation of the Mahāmāyā text accompanied by a philological commentary. The first two chapters contain data which were originally meant to be introductory; but their size has cutgrown that qualification. The chapters 4, 5 and 6 deal with subjects which clarify the tackground of the Mabānājā fragment but which were far too large to be included in the commentasy in Ch. 3. ”(p. x).
Ch. I discusses some instances of Māyā as supernatural paper Hidded by the Vedic and Brahmapial gods for various ends. Stare-changing and unethical, seemingly irresponsible behaviour have been particularly brought out and stressed. The effects of Māyā have been expressed in terms of magic. The auther feels that this aspect of Māyā has been comparatively neglected in monographs on the subject which tend to emphasise the philosophical side.
Ch. 2 deals with sādhanā-the appropriation of supranormal power by means of intense meditation. In its Indian form presupposed in the Mābāmāyā fragment, it is the self-identification by a human performerTantric expert or magician-with a particular deity, the performer being assisted in the course of his pursuit by potent utterances, the mantras or bijas "considered to be identical with the deity' and the bearers of the desired powers.'
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