Bhai Vir Singh: Poet of the Sikhs by Gurbachan Singh Talib; Harbans Singh; Yann LovelockReview by: Richard J. CohenJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 99, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1979), pp. 541-542Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/602503 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 14:41

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

American Oriental Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal ofthe American Oriental Society.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.230 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 14:41:49 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Brief Reviews of Books 541

in which the beginnings and endings of translations and the author's comments on them are not clearly distinguished taxes the patience of the reader.

RICHARD W. LARIVIERE

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

Inner Development: The Yes! Bookshop Guide. By CRIS

POPENOE. Pp. 654. Washington, D.C.: YES! INC.

Distributed by RANDOM HOUSE. 1979. $9.95.

This is a strange book. It has all the earmarks of being a compilation for what were called, in a different age, "flower children"; yet it is an annotated bibliography on a variety of subjects and usually contains a listing of the best scholarly works (in English) on each subject. The subject headings range from "African Philosophies" to "UFO's & Unex- plained Phenomena." In between there are chapters on Buddhism (subsections on Asvaghosa, The Dhammapada, Jataka tales, Madhyamika, the Pali Canon, Tibetan Buddhism, Milarepa, Zen, Dogen, Hui Neng), Indian Philosophy, Islam, Jewish Mysticism, etc.

There are, certainly, more than enough entries by Timothy Leary, Rajneesh, Swamf Muktananda, etc., but just about the time one is ready to put the book down after a page of annotated entries on such books as "Mayer, Nancy. The Male Mid-Life Crisis: Fresh Starts AfterForty." there will be pages of really solid works by such scholars as Alexander Csoma de Koros, Erich Frauwallner, Jan Gonda, Max Weber, M. Hiriyanna, E.W. Hopkins, Mircea Eliade, Gershom Scholem, Louis Finkelstein, Masaharu Anesaki, and many others.

This book is intended for those who are ceaselessly searching for "inner truths," "life's meaning," "the essence of the cosmos," and their car keys, but Cris Popenoe is to be commended for including so much work by real scholars.

RICHARD W. LARIVIERE

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSLYVANIA

Rasarnavakalpa. Edited and translated by MIRA Roy, in collaboration with B. V. SUBBARAYAPPA. Pp. 174. Indian National Science Academy Monograph No. 5. New Delhi: INDIAN NATIONAL SCIENCE ACADEMY.

1976. $5.00.

The Rasarnavakalpa belongs to the esoteric Rudraya- malatantra, a division of Tantric science concerned with

strengthening the human body through the ingestion of an elixir (rasayana), usually a mixture of mercury in compound with some other mineral, metal or vegetable substance. The text (ca. eleventh century A.D.) attempts to codify alchemical knowledge into twenty-nine kalpas (here, the inherent efficacy of a substance), broadly grouping these into three parts: rasayanotpatti, benefits derived from the preparation and use of elixirs; rasaprakriya, the uses of mercury, especially in the transmutation of base metals into gold and silver; and kalpaprabhdga, an enumeration of plants, minerals and metals, their properties and uses.

The text has been edited from one manuscript owned by The Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta. The entire Sanskrit text has been printed along with an English translation of all verses dealing specifically with scientific information. Unfortunately, the editor has chosen not to translate verses directly concerned with allied religious aspects of the subject, the inclusion of which would have greatly enhanced the value of the book. An appendix identifies thirty-nine plants mentioned in the text, giving their botanical names and major chemical constituents. An exhaustive glossary lists and explicates the highly technical Sanskrit scientific terminology employed in the text. There is a useful bibliography and index. B. V. Subbarayappa has written a short, concise introduction, outlining the contents of the text and comparing it to other rasascstra texts such as the Rasaratnakara and the Rasarnava.

Despite leaving passages untranslated, which would have been of interest to scholars of Indian religion, Ms. Roy should be congratulated for bringing to light an important primary source for the study of Tantric science and thought.

RICHARD J. COHEN

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSLYVANIA

Bhai Vir Singh: Poet of the Sikhs. Translated from the Punjabi with introductions by GURBACHAN SINGH TALIB, and HARBANS SINGH, with YANN LOVELOCK. Pp. x + 155. New Delhi: MOTILAL BANARSIDASS. 1976. Rs. 30.00.

This book is the second product of Professor Harbans Singh's intention, as stated in his biography, Bhai Vir Singh (reviewed in JAOS, 95.2), to carry out a thorough study of the life and work of one of the most important authors of modern Panjabi literature.

The publication is divided into two parts. Part One contains an introduction by Professor Gurbachan Singh Talib to the life of Bhai Vir Singh, the historical background and characteristics of his poetry and the seminal role the

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.230 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 14:41:49 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

542 Journal of the American Oriental Society 99.3 (1979)

poet played in Panjabi literature. Translations by Professor Talib of sixty-six short poems complete Part One. Part Two offers excerpts from Bhai Vir Singh's epic, Rona Surat Singh, introduced and translated by Professor Harbans Singh. The story of Rana Surat Singh and his queen, Raj Kaur, represents the poet's highest achievment: the personification of the soul's desire and willingness to search for and find the subtlety and grace of the Absolute in Nature.

The book has been accepted in the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works, Indian Series.

RICHARD J. COHEN

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

Punjab Past and Present: Essays in Honor of Dr: Ganda Singh. Edited by HARBANS SINGH and N. GERALD

BARRIER. Pp. xxiii + 511. Patiala: PUNJABI UNIVERSITY.

1976. Rs. 45.00.

This volume is a fitting tribute to Professor Ganda Singh who has been a consistent contributor to Punjab historical studies for more than half a century. It includes essays selected from the proceedings of the Punjab Historical Conference (Patiala), which Professor Singh himself inaugurated in 1965, the Punjab Studies Conference (U.S.A.), and contributions solicited specifically for the book. The result is a collection of articles reflecting a wide spectrum of research interests of eighteen Indian and fifteen western scholars, mostly American.

Although there are several weak papers which generally suffer from presumptuous claims, e.g., the proto-historic site of Harappa was built and inhabited by Vedic aryans, and Candragupta Maurya was born and bred in the Punjab, the majority of essays in this collection are particularly informative for scholars interested in specific topics concerning the history, religion and art of the Sikhs.

W. H. McLeod in his contribution, "Trade and Investment in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Punjab: The Testimony of the Sikh Devotional Literature," explores the types of written sources containing valuable information for the reconstruction of late mediaeval and early modern Punjab economic history. Gurbux Singh's offering, "Persian Writings on Guru Nanak," brings to light a subject which should prove of great interest to scholars interested in the history of the Sikh religion. Karuna Goswamy's "An Early Seventeenth Century Painting from Nirpur," is one of the best articles in this colleciton. In it she presents a new document of Pahar! painting, arguing that the origin of the hill schools may indeed be identified

with the kingdom of Narpur and a date ca. 1625 A.D. N. Gerald Barrier in, "Quantification in Punjab Social and Political History: Sources and Problems," deals with methodological issues which obtain in the gathering and use of such source materials as newspapers and British records. Kenneth W. Jones in, "The Bengali Elite in Post- annexation Punjab: An Example of Inter-regional Influence in Nineteenth-century India," studies the effects of the British policy of "importing" Bengali officials to administer the Punjab after its annexation in 1849. The two articles by Mark Juergensmeyer and Emily Brown, namely, "Ghadar Sources: Research on Punjabi Revolutionaries in America," and, "Students, Sikhs and Swamis: Punjabis in the United States, 1899-1914," define a new, fertile area for historical documentation.

The publication contains a partial bibliography of Professor Singh's scholarship and useful index.

RICHARD J. COHEN

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

Assamese Literature. By SATYENDRA NATH SARMA.

Volume IX, Part IT, Fasicle 2, in A History of Indian Literature, edited by JAN GONDA. Pp. 76. Wiesbaden: OTTO HARRASSOWITZ. 1976.

One would look forward in anticipation to a plan of writing a "new" history of Indian literature which allocates a separate volume to document the origins and development of Assamese literature. Given the fact that critical analysis of the subject still languishes at the preliminary stage, one would expect the desideratum to be a volume which treats the subject more extensively than others have to date. Sarma's book unfortunately does not fulfill our expecta- tions.

This book follows the paradigm of B. K. Barua's, A History of Assamese Literature (New Delhi, 1964) and Hem Barua's Assamese Literature (New Delhi, 1965); generally reliable diachronic treatments of the major periods, authors and genres of Assamese. There is little in the way of critical literary analysis.

Sarma has divided his topic into four circumscribed areas, giving most weight to historically definable periods. Chapter I, "The Early Period," accordingly deals with the ill-defined corpus of literature belonging to the Sahajayana Buddhists; also claimed by scholars of early Bengali, Oriya and Maithili literature. While acknowledging that the language of the Caryapadas, ". . . represents the latest phase of Magadhan Apabhramrsa, and so all eastern Indian languages . . . ," (p. 44) Sarma argues that Assamese, more

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.230 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 14:41:49 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions