SHORT REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTES 81

structure and work patterns, that he shows himself to be most at home .

His handling of the impact of recent changes in the larger society (in-
dustrialization, urbanization, mass communications, the Spanish civil war,
secularization) on the life-styles and production patterns of these fairly
simple village communities, as well as on their religious behaviour, often
shows remarkable insight .
Chapter 2 contains the material that will be of greatest interest to the
student of religion as such : quite detailed description of the various
shrines (regional and local ones) at which the villagers worship, as well as
of the nature of that worship . Here again, Christian's sensitivity to
historical changes stand him in very good stead . The reader somehow
experiences the passing of the generations and the centuries, the succession
of priests with different views, each a representative of the Catholicism of
his time, the propagation and then institutionalization of ever-changing
forms of worship, and the tension set up between innovating priest and
conservative community .
Chapter 3 looks at the varying religious styles of different types of
villagers. There are interesting detailed transcriptions of interviews with
a number of informants, and the personal devotions and religious prac-
tices are once again related to the social setting, both of the community
and of the Church itself. The author shows much comprehension of the
changing role of the priest, and analyses with particular acumen the
problems faced both by the representatives of the Church and by their
flock in the days after Vatican II . Finally, Christian has paid particular
attention to the analogies between the relationships in the religious sphere,
between believer, God, and the saintly intermediaries, on the one hand,
and on the other hand the relationships of patronage prevalent in a still
highly hierarchical, class-ridden and bureaucratized society such as
Spain .
All in all I find this a truly admirable book . Not only will it be of value
to students of the subject, it should also give them much pleasure .

Emanuel de Kadt
Institute of Development Studies,
Universiy of Sussex .

SPIRO, M. E. Buddhism and Society. London : Allen & Unwin, 1 97 1 ,

pP, xiv + 519, £7 .25 .

This is a major study of the `Great Tradition' of Burmese Buddhism as

opposed to the folk religion which was the subject of Professor Spiro's
Burmese Supernaturalism and is conceived as a companion work . In four
sections he discusses Burmese Buddhism as an ideological system, as a
ritual system, as a monastic system and lastly in its relationship to
Burmese society .
8a SHORT REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTES

The treatment of Buddhism as an ideological system suffers from

some major defects . Perhaps the most important of these is a largely
unargued assumption about the nature of early Buddhism . Already in the
prologue (p . 14) we read : `Souls and gods, rituals and festivals, heavens
and hells-these and many more have all been reincorporated into
Buddhism as we know it' . By implication there was an original Buddhism
which lacked such corruptions . More recent scholarship would doubt
this-quite possibly gods, rituals, heavens and hells were all part of
Buddhism from its inception .
A partial consequence of this is Spiro's analysis of Burmese Buddhism
into three separate and in part contradictory religious systems, which in
his view are intermingled to such an extent that a given individual may
adopt elements from each of the three . Nibbanic Buddhism is the religion
of the virtuoso aiming for liberation, kammatic Buddhism is the religion of
the believer who aims to accumulate merit by good deeds and secure a
favourable rebirth, while apotropaic Buddhism involves the use of magical
rituals to secure protection or relief of ills . In Spiro's view each of these is
in logical contradiction to the other two .
There are several key misconceptions of classical Theravadin concepts
involved . The three most important concern the notions of nibbana, no-self
and kamma . In Theravada Buddhism nibbana is not mere annihilation, but
contains rather a degree of (deliberate?) ambiguity. The orthodox
commentarial tradition clearly denies the view that nibbana is nothingness
and asserts it merely to be extremely subtle in nature . (e .g. Visuddhimagga
XVI 67-74) . The popular viewpoint identified by Spiro should not
therefore be sharply differentiated from a classical position .
Nor is the doctrine of no-self in any way inconsistent with the Burmese
`butterfly spirit' which continues from life to life, unless this is seen as
unchanging . In terms of conventional truth there is personal continuity
both from childhood to old age and from life to life . It is only from the
vantage point of absolute (paramattha) truth that continuity is denied in
both these cases. Hence Spiro's informants were quite correct to define
no-self in terms of impermanence .
Belief in kamma is in no way inconsistent either with the use of rituals
for `magical' protection or with the use of medicine to cure disease . A
deterministic view of kamma associated with Jains or Ajivikas is strongly
rejected in the Pali Canon and also in later Buddhist tradition . Hence
neither kammatic or apotropaic Buddhism involve any conceptual clash
either with one another or with nibbanic Buddhism .
Cognitively this is clearly so ; but affectively it may well appear that
there is a necessary conflict of motivations . Such a view discounts the
traditional descriptions of Buddhism as a path with legitimate short-term
as well as long-term goals, expounded by the Buddha on different levels
in accordance with the aspirations of his hearers . By analogy the school-
boy's aim of coming top of his class or even of playing the school team is
not in itself necessarily in contradiction with his aim of going to university.
This is very apparent in an examination of the earlier texts . The order
SHORT REVIEWS AND BOOK NO TES 83

of development represented by the canonical series : giving (dank)

> morality > meditation practice (bhdvana), adequately expresses the
integral necessity of kammatic Buddhism for nibbanic Buddhism . Simi-
larly the canonical justification for the chanting of suttas sees this central
act of Buddhist ritual as the start of a devotional process which by pro-
ducing joy, prepares the ground for relaxation (passaddhi) and concentra-
tion (samddhi) . From such a standpoint the rituals of apotropaic Buddhism
are simply a series of devices intended to lead devotees in the desired
direction .
Lest such criticisms should give an unbalanced picture, it is important
to emphasize that the sections which consider Burmese Buddhism as a
ritual and as a monastic system contain a great deal of valuable material,
which certainly represents a substantial work of scholarship and one
which provides a collection of data likely to be of lasting value .

Lance S . Cousins
Department of Comparative Religion,
University of Manchester .

Mithraic Studies
Edited by John H. Hinnells
This book offers a fundamental reassessment of previous studies of the worship of
Mithra, not only in the West but also in India and Iran . The volume has grown out
of the first International Congress of Mithraic Studies, held at Manchester in July
1971 . There are articles on the relations of Mithraism with other religions as well
as discussions of methods and principles and detailed arguments on texts, reliefs,
coins and other objects. This is the first time that scholarly collaboration on an
international scale has been efFected in order to elucidate the many problems both
in the East and in the West .
7190 0536 1 2 vols ; probably £18 .oo net

Man and his Salvation

Essays in memory of Professor S. G. F. Brandon
Edited by Eric J. Sharpe and John R. Hinnells
This book was originally planned as a tribute to S . G. F . Brandon on his sixty-fifth
birthday in recognition of his services to scholarship through his writings, as
Secretary General of the International Association for the History of Religions and
for twenty years as Professor and Head of Department of Comparative Religion at
Manchester, Now, following his untimely death, this symposium takes the form
of a memorial volume. It is concerned with the general phenomenon of man's
understanding of his own nature and how he conceived of his ultimate destiny and
liberation.
7190 0537 X £5.40 net
Manchester University Press
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