78 Book Reviews

societies, exhibit only rebirth eschatologies, the ancient Greeks partially possessed
and the early Indians fully possessed ethicized rebirth eschatologies. Clearly,
Obeyesekeres methodological presuppositions weigh heavily on this line of rea-
soning, for comparison cannot arise without the establishment of structures,
models, ideal types [that] provide stable points for comparative analysis (349).
Here, again, the reader must confront the second order of inquiry that threads its
way through Imagining Karma, namely, the establishment of a fundamental model
of rebirth that reaches into a great diversity of representations. For Obeyesekere,
this model is not an essentialist construction; as he explains, the meaning frames
imposed on the world by humans are not totalistic or uniform in any society but
exhibit breaks, discontinuities, and differences, and might vary by gender, class,
or rank, and religious status (351). In other words, the model eschatology
Obeyesekere establishes through delineating the Indian karma doctrine is not
meant to be imposed on non-Indic eschatologies but to elicit from them (in termi-
nology appropriated from Nietzsche and Wittgenstein) an identiable structure
from which resemblances and differences fan out (353). That this hermeneutic
begins with an Indic construct cannot be ignored within the larger framework of
the study of religion, for which phenomenological categories have been over-
whelmingly drawn from Western models. There is a deeply subversive message
here; however, Obeyesekere cautions us to move beyond simple labels: West-
ern . . . like its opposite, non-Western, might be useful for ordinary discourse or
for sorting things out in a preliminary fashion but not for serious methodological
discourses (353).
It is not possible to capture the essence of this complex work in a brief review.
Claiming a very modest beginning for it, Obeyesekere tells us that its seeds are
to be found in work he commenced nearly forty years ago and that bits and pieces
of it have been worked out over the intervening years. Although Obeyesekeres
approach is often unorthodox, for example, when he leaves aside (and for good
reasons; see xviii) the work of classical scholars in his interpretation of the Greek
materials, the depth and range of scholarship is frequently breathtaking. Though
scholars may not agree with Obeyesekeres methodological presuppositions (and
his sometimes dogmatic approach in presenting them), they cannot ignore their
deeper implications. In brief, historians of religions from all elds of inquiry will
benet greatly from a careful reading of Obeyesekeres work, not just for its pro-
vocative descriptions of afterlife beliefs but for the methodological challenges it
brings to our discipline.

Herman Tull
Princeton University

Design and Rhetoric in a Sanskrit Court Epic: The Kiratarjuniya of Bharavi.

By Indira Viswanathan Peterson. Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2003. Pp. xii+306, 7 plates. $71.50 (cloth); $23.95 (paper).

There are hardly a handful of worthy studies on grand poems (Mahakavyas),

the most prestigious genre of Sanskrit literature. Indira Viswanathan Petersons
History of Religions 79

monograph, dedicated to one of the classics of the genre, Arjuna and the Hunter
(Kiratarjuniya) by the sixth-century South Indian poet Bharavi, constitutes an
important step in amending this sorry state of affairs.
The theme of Bharavis Kiratarjuniya is taken from the Mahabharata, a monu-
mental epic that narrates a crisis of succession in the Bharata lineage. Two cousins,
Yudhisthira and Duryodhana, consider themselves legitimate contenders to the
throne. The epic authors clearly favor Yudhisthira and his four younger brothers.
Yet quite early in the story these ve princesall of whom are married to a single
wife, Draupadiare defeated by their cousins in an ill-fated dice game. Humili-
ated and literally stripped of all they possess, they are forced to go on a long exile
of thirteen years. Only when this period is over can they return to avenge their
humiliation and redeem their throne. This is achieved in a bloody and morally
problematic battle, in which most of their relatives are killed.
Bharavis poem is an eighteen-canto-long poetic meditation on a single and
relatively short episode in the lives of the Mahabharatas exiled heroes. it depicts
the success of Arjunaa younger brother to Yudhisthira, and the epics paradig-
matic warriorin obtaining a celestial weapon from Lord iva. This god, who
spends his time in yogic meditation on the peaks of the Himalayas, possesses
a weapon that will prove crucial in the epics ultimate battle. In order to gain it,
Arjuna sets out to the Himalayas, practices severe austerities, overcomes the temp-
tation of an army of heavenly nymphs, defeats a demon in the guise of a wild
boar, and prevails in a wrestling match with iva himself, who is disguised as a
tribal hunter. Bharavi narrates these exploits in densely ornate language, which con-
tributed to his fame in the Sanskrit literary tradition. Yet his elaborate style also
led Western readers from the nineteenth century on to label his work, like most
other mahakavyas, articial. Consequently, the Kiratarjuniya, like many of the
masterworks of its genre, remained largely unknown to readers outside India (1).
Given this background, Petersons primary task is to acquaint nonspecialists with
the genre of grand poetry (mahakavya) and to impress them with its complexity,
unique aesthetics, cultural context, and rich intertextual nature. She achieves this
challenging goal admirably, both by means of her eloquent exposition of Bharavis
poem and by her accessible, lucid, and often moving translations of his verse.
While Peterson aims to escape alien literary tastes and biases, she also wishes
to transcend the paradigms of Sanskrit poetic theorists, particularly those outlin-
ing gures of speech (alamkara) and aestheticized emotion (rasa). Traditional
analysis based on the former is mostly limited to identifying the type of guration
operative in a single verse, while Peterson aims to demonstrate that the maha-
kavya poets cultivated generic strategies of their own in the treatment of formal
and thematic units larger than the stanzacantos, long descriptions . . . , speeches
and didactic discourses, the poem as a whole (17). Regarding the latter, Peterson
wishes to go beyond the constraints of Anandavardhanas theoryaccording to
which a poem in its entirety should be conned to conveying one dominant mood,
such as the erotic or heroic. She rightly argues that while the Kiratarjuniya con-
forms remarkably well to the ideal later held by Anandavardhana (41), rasa theory
alone cannot explain Bharavis many strategies, such as his common allusions to
poetic and nonpoetic discourses. Still, Peterson only partly fullls her promise to
go beyond emic thinkers. She elegantly illustrates the strategies Bharavi uses in
 80 Book Reviews

composing poetic units larger than the stanza, thereby expanding the traditional
alamkara analysis. Yet her discussion of the poem as a whole is limited and often
reverts back to the singly focused and hence conning discourse of rasa.
The book could be divided into three parts (with four translation selections as
appendices). The rst, consisting of chapters 13, forms an extended introduction.
Here Peterson introduces the poetics of mahakavya, or court epic, as she terms
it, and discusses the approaches Western scholars and Sanskrit literary theorists
have adopted when analyzing this genre. Peterson then presents Bharavis work,
describes its historical context and epic background, and discusses the strategies
used to transform the epic episode into a mahakavya.
Surprisingly, Peterson does not once mention the comments of Kuntaka, the only
poetry critic who referred to the Kiratarjuniyas overall design. According to Kun-
taka, Bharavi meant to rene the entire story of the Mahabharata by choosing to
narrate a single episode from it (Kuntaka, Vajroktijivita, ed. K. Krishnamoorty
[Dharwad: Karnatak University, 1977], 27678). Thus the poems opening debate
between the heroes and their wife, Draupadi, alludes to the traumatic experiences
that led to their exile yet does not actually describe them. Likewise, it concludes
with a promise of the brothers victory, epitomized by the weapon Arjuna heroically
obtains from iva, but edits out the morally problematic scenes of the actual war.
Kuntakas notion of the Kiratarjuniya as a sublimation of the epic whole provides
a particularly useful framework for Petersons numerous insights on its specic
passages. Yet this and other possibilities for understanding the larger structure of
the poem, such as the process of Arjunas recovery of his own self, are not ex-
plored. As a result, her observations do not create a coherent vision of Bharavis
project.
Take, for instance, the books second section, where Peterson explores Bharavis
arrangements of poetic oratory (chaps. 45) and descriptive art (chap. 6). With
respect to the former, Peterson patiently and skillfully exposes how verses in
Draupadis lament form segments of peculiar aesthetic coherence (58), which
in turn combine to create a unied and powerful plea. A similar sense of integrity
is created by the conicting views of her two brother-husbands Yudhisthira and
Bhima, whose speeches, as Peterson shows in detail, contain equivalent vocabu-
lary and imagery, thereby creating a tight pair of opposing views on royal duty.
Peterson also reveals the resonance between these speeches and the extrapoetic
discourses on statecraft (artha) and moral duty (dharma). Far less attention, how-
ever, is given to the connection between the heroes monologues and the rest of
the poem, and references to them surface only occasionally in the later chapters.
In chapter 6, Peterson makes an important contribution by helping us under-
stand the organizational principles, the structural strategies of the mahakavyas
monumental descriptions (91). She shows that descriptive passages in the poem,
unlike their epic antecedents, consist of asymmetrical and nonlinear variation
of lexical items, gures, and themes, comparable to the endless permutations and
intervallic structure of the classical Indian raga music. Particularly convincing is
Petersons analysis of the constant interchange between the objective and subjec-
tive elements, elegantly exemplied in the description of the nymphs and the
plants to which they are conventionally compared (108ff.). Yet again, this power-

ONE SHORT
History of Religions 81

ful analysis is loosely tied to Petersons discussion of the poems other units. The
unity between women and nature is explained by the philosophic unity of all
entities, a notion that has little to do with the poetics of the mahakavya in general
or of the Kiratarjuniya in particular. Peterson hardly considers its signicance in
the larger framework of the poem, beyond occasional recourse to rasa language.
Thus later in the book she suggests, in passing, that this descriptive sequence was
introduced into the plot in order to offer the erotic description required in a court
poem (163).
In the books third part, Peterson offers many insights into the intriguing com-
bination of heroism and asceticism in Arjunas penance (chap. 7) and into his resort
to ghting once attacked by the boar and ivas troops (chap. 8). Particularly per-
suasive is her discussion of the personication of Arjunas weapons, described as
his personal friends and counselors and, eventually, as embodying his heroic qual-
ities (15460). Peterson notes that this trope has been suggestively developed all
the way through the poem (154). Unfortunately, she does not explore the themes
of loss and recovery further, themes that are central to Bharavis depiction of this
matter, as Petersons own translations powerfully suggest. Take, for instance, the
dramatic moment when Arjuna, attacked by the raging boar and weakened by his
extensive penance, nally resorts to his bow. Its string, says Bharavi, readily bends
just as a noble friend,
a man of rm principles, responds at once
when one who has lost his wealth
appeals for his help. (156)

If they form an integral part of Arjunas heroic persona, asks Peterson at the
very opening of her nal, ninth chapter, why does iva succeed in stripping him,
one by one, of all of his weapons, till he has no choice but to wrestle with the
god? (161). Petersons answer seems to be that this is how the poet leads to the
combats climactic scenewhen iva leaps into the air in order to dash his oppo-
nent to the ground and Arjuna instinctively seizes his feet. This pregnant image,
argues Peterson, perfectly combines the heroic sentiment (vira-rasa) with emo-
tional devotion to the god (bhakti). Grasping ivas feet is concomitantly the high-
est manifestation of a warriors bare-handed bravery and a devotees ultimate act
of surrender. Only when the sages watch Arjunas move with amazement, thereby
fullling ivas plan to enhance Arjunas fame by allowing him to prevail in the
battle, does the god reveal himself to Arjuna and grant him the celestial weapon.
Peterson is absolutely convincing when she argues for symbiosis between
bhakti and rasa in this poetic climax, and her comparison of Bharavis work with
folk, epic, and devotional retelling of the episode serves well to highlight the
unique aesthetics of his mahakavya. The wrestling of Arjuna and iva is an ex-
tremely popular theme in South Asia, as it portrays a unique union of man and
god. And as Peterson points out, Bharavi fully exploits the religious possibilities
and the paradoxes inherent in it: man equals the invincible god in a wrestling con-
test, the omniscient Lord who has master planned the event nonetheless allows
himself to be amazed by his human rival, intimacy with god is brief, and it is
achieved only through ignorance of his true identity.
82 Book Reviews

Still, one wonders if the poems nal moment does not also form the apex of
Arjunas self-realization, a process that cannot be reduced either to religious de-
votion (bhakti) or to the rather general concept of aestheticized emotion (rasa).
For at the end of the poem, Arjuna nds his lost true self and realizes this inter-
nally through the eyes of iva; his self-recovery is epitomized by the heavenly
weapon that actually enters his body. Indeed, Petersons brief epilogue, where she
discusses the imagery of the sun, now rising, seems to support this possibility,
which merits further exploration.
The criticism presented here should take nothing away from the books impor-
tant achievements. Peterson proves that it is possible and fruitful to approach a
mahakavya such as Arjuna and the Hunter through the aesthetic values it em-
bodies. She succeeds in making one of the greatest works of literature accessible
and meaningful to nonspecialists, as well as useful for teachers of South Asian
culture and religion. That there may be other ways of interpreting Bharavis poetry
only attests to his genius.

Yigal Bronner
Tel Aviv University

The Victorian Translation of China: James Legges Oriental Pilgrimage. By

Norman J. Girardot. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 2002. Pp. xxx+780, 38 illustrations. $75.00 (cloth).

Those of us who considered devoting our professional careers to Chinese re-

ligion remember James Legge. In Taiwan some years back, you could pick up
very cheaply a complete set of his Chinese Classics, in ve hefty yellow volumes,
reprinted illegally by Caves Books. Their pages are marvels of Victorian print-
ing; the huge Chinese text, large-print translation, and tiny footnotes all jammed
together on the same dense page somehow give the sense that, with Legge on your
shelves, you are properly launched upon the deep waters of Chinese thought.
What many of us discovered, however, was that Sinology and the history of
religions do not mix. The Sinologists always made this explicit: if you study China,
you will not have time for anything else, and if you try you will always be a
dilettante. Most of all, religion was irrelevant or trivial, not something real Sinol-
ogists wasted time on. Historians of religion were less overt and, perhaps, less
self-conscious; they always encouraged the study of China, but nobody ever
seemed to know or care the slightest thing about it. The few scholars of Chinese
religion were always somehow treated as not quite part of the inner circle, not
truly historians of religion.
The real point of Norman Girardots wonderful but rather long book is to ex-
plain how this state of affairs came about. Back in the late Victorian era, James
Legge (181597), Nonconformist missionary and rst Oxford professor of Chi-
nese, was one of the generals in F. Max Mllers war to put the science of com-
parative religions on the intellectual map. In a number of respects, China was the
rst place colonized by the discipline once it began to stretch beyond its home-
land in Vedic India. By tracing the course of Legges intellectual life, Girardot