The Journal of the American Oriental Society articles from January 1998

The Journal of the American Oriental Society archives from January 1998

Forgotten witness: evidence for the early codification of the Qur'an. (Koran)
January 1, 1998... In the last two decades a controversy has arisen over the period in which the text of Muslim scripture became codified. The traditional Islamic view can be summarized as follows.(1) Both Abu Bakr (A.H. 11-13/A.D. 632-34) and Umar (13-23/634-44)...

Sikh fundamentalism.
January 1, 1998... Is there such a thing as Sikh fundamentalism? Sikh theologians deny that such a concept can be applied to their faith and would presumably explain the recent situation in the following terms. Most Sikhs do not ever hear or read the term (or its...

A new translation of Cuneiform laws. (book review)
January 1, 1998... Roth's volume is timely and welcome. It is timely because many years have passed since the publication of a comparable set of translations into English, most notably, J. B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament,...

Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor.
January 1, 1998... By MARTHA T. ROTH. With a Contribution by Harry A. Hoffner, Jr. Writings from the Ancient World; Society of Biblical Literature, vol. 6 Atlanta: SCHOLARS PRESS, 1995. Pp. xviii + 283. $60 (cloth); $40 (paper). [A "second edition" is now available...

Divine images and aniconism in ancient Israel. (book review)
January 1, 1998... One again Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, professor of Old Testament studies at Lund University, has produced a thorough analysis on a neglected topic crucial to the reconstruction of ancient Israelite religion. Since the 1970s, Mettinger has written...

No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context.
January 1, 1998... One again Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, professor of Old Testament studies at Lund University, has produced a thorough analysis on a neglected topic crucial to the reconstruction of ancient Israelite religion. Since the 1970s, Mettinger has written...

Nomads on ponies vs. slaves in horses. (Mamluk-Ilkhanid War)(book review)
January 1, 1998... In 1256, a large reinforcement increased the Mongol presence in the Middle East to 150,000 troops, at least, accompanied by women and children (perhaps another 600,000) and herds (at least 15 million animals) - a population about equal to that of...

Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1260-1281.
January 1, 1998... In 1256, a large reinforcement increased the Mongol presence in the Middle East to 150,000 troops, at least, accompanied by women and children (perhaps another 600,000) and herds (at least 15 million animals) - a population about equal to that of...

The text of Ferdowsi's 'Shahnama' and the burden of the past. (Persian poet Abu'l-Qasem Ferdowsi)
January 1, 1998... The thesis of this note is that the textual tradition of Ferdowsi's Shahnama, by way of its variant readings, reflects an oral tradition of formulaic composition. In my book on classical Persian poetry, I had tested an earlier version of this...

Once more, ajyate. (Nagarjuna's 'Mulamadhyamakakarikas')
January 1, 1998... In de La Vallee Poussin's edition of the Mulamadhyamakakarikas (MMK) of Nagarjuna together with Candrakirti's Prasannapada (Bibliotheca Buddhica IV, 1903-13) the text of karika II.11 is as follows: gamane dve prasajyete ganta yady uta gacchati...

Tabula imperi romanii: Iudaea-Palaestina, Eretz Israel in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Periods.
January 1, 1998... By Y. TSAFRIR, L. DI SEGNI and J. GREEN with contributions by I. ROLL and Ts. TSUK. Publications of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Section of Humanities. Jerusalem: THE ISRAEL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES, 1994. Pp. x + 264....

On Sherd and Papyrus: Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from the Second Temple, Mishnaic, and Talmudic Periods.
January 1, 1998... By J. NAVEH. Jerusalem: MAGNES PRESS, 1992. Pp. 238. [Hebrew.] Joseph Naveh, Professor of West Semitic Epigraphy and Paleography at The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, has now published a book which supplements his previous work on the synagogue...

Ancient Egyptian Science, vol. 2: Calendars, Clocks, and Astronomy.
January 1, 1998... By MARSHALL CLAGETT. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 214. Philadelphia: AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, 1995. Pp. xv + 575; many illustrations. $50. This hefty tome is volume two of a three-volume sourcebook on ancient...

Festschrift Ewald Wagner zum 65. Geburtstag, vol. 1: Semitische Studien unter besonderer Berucksichtigung der Sud semitistik.
January 1, 1998... Edited by WOLFHART HEINRICHS and GREGOR SCHOELER. Beiruter Texte und Studien, vol. 54.1. Beirut: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 1994. Pp. xv + 284. DM 96 (paper). This Festschrift is one of two volumes in honor of the University of Giessen's Ewald...

Leiden und Gerechtigkeit: Studien zu Theologie und Textgeschichte des Sirachsbuches.
January 1, 1998... By LUTZ SCHRADER. Beitrage zur biblischen Exegese und Theologie, vol. 27. Frankfurt am Main: PETER LANG, 1994. Pp. 327. DM 52.95 (paper). This slightly revised and expanded dissertation was accepted in 1992 by the theological faculty of the...

Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible.
January 1, 1998... Edited by KAREL VAN DEN TOORN, BOB BECKING, and PIETER W. VAN DER HORST. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1995. Pp. xxxvi + 1774 columns (2 per page) + 19 page index. HFl 225, $128.75. A reference work with alphabetized topical or thematic entries is...

Elmali Karatas, II: The Early Bronze Age Village of Karatas.
January 1, 1998... By JAYNE L. WARNER. Bryn Mawr College Archaeological Monographs. Bryn Mawr, Pa.: BRYN MAWR COLLEGE, 1994. Pp. xxxii + 220; 206 plates (1 jacketed). $40. This is the second of six planned volumes detailing the results of the 1963-75 Elmali...

House Most High: The Temples of Ancient Mesopotamia.
January 1, 1998... By A. R. GEORGE. Mesopotamian Civilizations, 5. Winona Lake, Ind.: EISENBRAUNS, 1993. Pp. xii + 209; 16 plates. $39.50. This handsomely and very carefully produced volume is, to be sure, not the comprehensive study that one might expect from...

Testi rituali della regalita.
January 1, 1998... Testi rituali della regalita (archivio L. 2769). By PELIO FRONZAROLI. In collaboration with AMALIA CATAGNOTI. Archivi Reali di Ebla, Testi, vol. 11. Rome: MISSIONE ARCHEOLOGICA ITALIANA IN SIRIA, 1993. Pp. xvi + 183 + 19 plates. LIt 90,000...

Hittie Etymological Dictionary, vol. 3: Words Beginning with H.
January 1, 1998... Trends in Linguistics 3. By JAN PUHVEL. Berlin and New York: MOUTON DE GRUYTER, 1991. Pp. ix + 441. $176.30 (cloth). As in previous volumes, the passages cited are grouped together by grammatical form, rather than by meaning or usage, i.e., for...

Galilee: History, Politics, People.
January 1, 1998... By RICHARD A. HORSLEY. Valley Forge, Pa.: TRINITY PRESS INTERNATIONAL, 1995. Pp. 357. $27. The publication of Richard Horsley's Galilee: History, Politics, People certainly marks an important trend in New Testament scholarship, one that is...

Tubinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients: Register zu den Karten General Index, vols. 1-3.
January 1, 1998... Tubinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients: Register zu den Karten / General Index, vols. 1-3 vol. 1: Einleitung / Introduction; A-G; vol. 2: H-P; vol. 3: Q-Z; Sachindex / Subject Index. Edited by HORST KOPP and WOLFGANG ROLLIG. With the collaboration...

War, Peace, and Empire: Justifications for War in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions.
January 1, 1998... By BUSTENAY ODED. Wiesbaden: DR. LUDWIG REICHERT VERLAG, 1992. Pp. xxiv + 199. DM 98 (paper). This book tries to investigate the justifications for going to war as stated in the Assyrian royal inscriptions, to look for internal and external...

Uruk: Hellenistic Seal Impressions in the Yale Babylonian Collection, vol. 1: Cuneiform Tablets.
January 1, 1998... By RONALD WALLENFELS. Deutsches Archaologisches Institut, Abt. Baghdad: Ausgrabungen in Uruk-Warka, Endberichte, vol. 19. Mainz am Rhein: VERLAG PHILIPP VON ZABERN, 1994. Pp. xii + 206 + 62 plates. DM 150. This volume is an expanded, fully...

Three faces of a Queen: Characterization in the Books of Esther.
January 1, 1998... By LINDA DAY. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series, 186. Sheffield: SHEFFIELD ACADEMIC PRESS, 1994. Pp. 254. [pounds]30, $45. The three surviving texts of the Book of Esther - the Greek A text and B text and the Hebrew...

The Reform of King Josiah and the Composition of the Deuteronomistic History.
January 1, 1998... By ERIK EYNIKEL, Oudtestamentische Studien, 33. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1996. Pp. xix + 411. HF1 175, $113. The great glory of the source-critical analysis of the Pentateuch, as ratified in the mid-nineteenth century, is its resolution of serious...

Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions, part 1-2.
January 1, 1998... By J. HOFTUZER and K. JONGELING. With appendices by R. C. Steiner, A. Mosak Moshavi, and B. Porten. Handbuch der Orientalistik, pt. 1: Der Nahe und Mittlere Osten, vol. 21. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1995. Pp. lxxi + 585; [vii] + 681 ("586-1266"). HFl...

Between Muslim and Jew: The Problem of Symbiosis Under Early Islam.
January 1, 1998... By STEVEN M. WASSERSTROM. Princeton: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1995. Pp. viii + 300. $45. Steven Wasserstrom's book is a very important contribution to the large number of studies of Jewish-Muslim symbiosis in the Middle Ages. He offers many...

Men, Women, and God(s): Nawal El Saadawi and Arab Feminist Poetics.
January 1, 1998... By FEDWA MALTI-DOUGLAS. Berkeley and Los Angeles: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, 1995. Pp. xiii + 273. This is a work of powerful advocacy; as such, it will delight and encourage some while aggravating others. Fedwa Malti-Douglas, already...

Islam and Heroic Image: Themes in Literature and the Visual Arts.
January 1, 1998... By JOHN RENARD. Studies in Comparative Religion. Columbia, S.C.: UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA PRESS, 1994. Pp. xxi + 342. This work is rich in ideas, and for the student of traditional literature of the Islamic lands, a pleasure to read. Part...

Sharh al-akhbar fi fada il al-a immat al-athar, 3 vols.
January 1, 1998... By AL-QADI AL-NU MAN. Edited by MUHAMMAD AL-HUSAYNI AL-JALALI. Qum: MU ASSISAT AL-NASHR AL-ISLAMI, 1409-12 A.H. [1988-92 A.D.]. Pp. 496, 611, 599. Riyals 1800, 2500, 3200. When the Isma ilis made their dramatic appearance on the stage of...

Sufism and Islamic Reform in Egypt: The Battle for Islamic Tradition.
January 1, 1998... By JULIAN JOHANSEN. Oxford: THE CLARENDON PRESS, 1996. Pp. 325. $80. In this neatly produced and scholarly volume, Julian Johansen, formerly a Junior Research Fellow at St. Edmund, Oxford, and now a trainee solicitor, expounds the thought and...

Oral Poetry and Narratives from Central Arabia, vol. 2: The Story of a Desert Knight: The Legend of Slewih al-Atawi and Other Utaybah Heroes.
January 1, 1998... Edited and translated by MARCEL P. KURPERSHOEK. Studies in Arabic Literature, Supplements to the Journal of Arabic Literature, vol. 17.2. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1995. Pp. xiv + 512. HF1 190, $108.75. This is the second volume of Marcel...

A Greek and Arab Lexicon (GALex): Materials for a Dictionary of the Medieval Translations from Greek into Arabic, fascicles 2 and 3.
January 1, 1998... Edited by GERHARD ENDRESS and DIMITRI GUTAS. Handbook of Oriental Studies, The Near and Middle East, vol. 11. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1994, 1995. Pp. 97223; pp. 225-320. HF1 80, $45.75 per fascicle. In her review of the first fascicle of the...

Sephardi Religious Responses to Modernity.
January 1, 1998... By NORMAN A. STILLMAN. Sherman Lecture Series, vol. 1. London: HARWOOD ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS, 1996. Pp. xiii + 99. [pounds] 12, $18. Norman Stillman's Sephardi Religious Responses to Modernity is a sympathetic attempt to describe religious...

Gesellschaftlicher Umbruch und Histoire im zeitgenossischen Drama der islamischen Welt.
January 1, 1998... Edited by JOHANN CHRISTOPH BURGEL and STEPHAN GUTH. Beiruter Texte und Studien, vol. 60. Beirut and Stuttgart: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 1995. Pp. 295. This collection of papers, based on a symposium held in Bern in 1989, deals with social...

Desert Songs: Western Images of Morocco and Moroccan Images of the West.
January 1, 1998... By JOHN MAIER. The Margins of Literature. Albany: STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS, 1996. Pp. xix + 354. $21.95 (paper). No single book has had an impact on the study of the Middle East in the past twenty years greater than Edward Said's...

Medieval Isma ili History and Thought.
January 1, 1998... Edited by FARHAD DAFTARY. Cambridge: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1996. Pp. xviii + 331. $59.95. Thanks to the efforts of a number of scholars and researchers, and to the increasing accessibility of hitherto unpublished (and unknown) materials,...

The Early Arabic Historical Tradition: A Source Critical Study.
January 1, 1998... By ALBRECHT NOTH. With the collaboration of LAWRENCE CONRAD. Translated by MICHAEL BONNER. Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, 3. Princeton: DARWIN PRESS, 1994. Pp. xi + 258. $27.50. The collaboration of Lawrence Conrad and Albrecht Noth...

Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East.
January 1, 1998... Four volumes. Edited by REEVA S. SIMON, PHILIP MATTAR, and RICHARD W. BULLIET. New York: MACMILLAN, 1996. Pp. 2,182. $350. Intended initially as a balanced reference work on the Arab-Israeli conflict, this encyclopedia expanded to include the...

Bibliography of Islamic Central Asia.
January 1, 1998... Three volumes. Compiled and edited by YURI BREGEL. Indiana University Uralic and Altaic Series, vol. 160. Bloomington: INDIANA UNIVERSITY RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR INNER ASIAN STUDIES, 1995. Pp. 2,276. $299. For the purposes of this bibliography...

The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture, and Ethnicity, vol. 1.
January 1, 1998... Edited by GEORGE ERDOSY. Indian Philology and South Asian Studies, edited by Albrecht Wezler and Michael Witzel, vol. 1. Berlin: WALTER DE GRUYTER, 1995. Pp. 417 + maps, index. This is a good book on a difficult subject. The so-called "Aryan...

Sanskrithandschriften aus den Turfanfunden, part 7: Die Katalognummern 1066-1799.
January 1, 1998... Edited by HEINZ BECHERT; described by KLAUS WILLE. Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, vol. X.7. Stuttgart: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 1995. Pp. ix + 518. DM 244. This is the seventh of a projected ten volumes (see SWTF, I:...

Asceticism in Buddhism and Brahmanism: A Comparative Study.
January 1, 1998... By RYOKAI SHIRAISHI. Buddhica Britannica, series continua, VI. Tring, U.K.: INSTITUTE OF BUDDHIST STUDIES, 1996. Pp. 257. Originally the author's doctoral dissertation at the University of Delhi, this study is intended "to depict and ascertain...

A Handbook of Pali Literature.
January 1, 1998... By OSKAR VON HINUBER. Indian Philology and South Asian Studies, vol. 2. New York: WALTER DE GRUYTER, 1996. Pp. 257. The author has produced a rich, comprehensive survey of the Pali Buddhist literature. Although it is a handbook and necessarily...

The Religious World of Kirti Sri: Buddhism, Art, and Politics in Late Medieval Sri Lanka.
January 1, 1998... By JOHN CLIFFORD HOLT. New York: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1996. Pp. xii + 147, appendix, notes, 50 illustrative plates, index. $39.95 (cloth); $17.95 (paper). Efforts, especially of studies of precolonial "institutions," to determine religious...

Verwandtschaft und Sozialitat bei den Jenu Kurumba.
January 1, 1998... By ULRICH DEMMER. Beitrage zur Sudasienforschung, Sudasien-Institut, Universitat Heidelberg, vol. 173. Pp. xi + 193. Stuttgart: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 1996. DM 66, OS 515. The book presents an ethnographic study of the Jenu Kurumba, a tribe of...

Phakir Lalan Sai: Des kal evam silpa.
January 1, 1998... By SAKTINATH JHA. Calcutta: SAMBAD, 1995. Pp. [9] + 359. Rs 150. Fakir Lalan Sai (d. 1890), better known as Lalan Fakir, is celebrated throughout Bengal as the best of the Baul poets. The first part of the book under review is an edition of his...

Mind, Body, and Society: Life and Mentality in Colonial Bengal.
January 1, 1998... Edited by RAJAT KANTA RAY. Calcutta: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1995. Pp. 486. $35. This easily overlooked collection of essays written on occasion of honoring distinguished professors of history who have been members of the Department of...

Water and Womanhood: Religious Meanings of Rivers in Maharashtra.
January 1, 1998... By ANNE FELDHAUS. New York: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1995. Pp. xiii + 250. $49 (cloth); $18.95 (paper). Rivers in India are the sites of meeting: where people meet each other and their gods; where "textual" and "classical" knowledge and...

Tantri Reliefs on Javanese Candi.
January 1, 1998... By MARIJKE J. KLOKKE. Verhandelingen, vol. 153. Leiden: KITLV PRESS, 1993. Pp. xiv + 323, 11 figures, 100 black-and-white illustrations. $35. The Tantri reliefs of the title are scenes, carved in stone, depicting stories from (or relating to)...

Burmese Puppets.
January 1, 1998... By NOEL F. SINGER. Images of Asia. Singapore: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1992. Pp. xii + 98, 20 color plates, 25 black and white. $16.95. Puppets fascinate pretty much everybody: it is by no means only children who look with delight upon figures...

Josephus and the History of the Greco-Roman Period: Essays in Memory of Morton Smith.
January 1, 1998... Edited by FAUSTO PARENTE and JOSEPH SIEVERS. Studia Post-Biblica, vol. 41. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1994. Pp. x + 392. HF1 160, $91.50. The eighteen essays in this collection are the results of an international conference on Josephus organized by...

Prophesying the Past: The Use of Israel's History in the Book of Hosea.
January 1, 1998... By ELSE KRAGELUND HOLT. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series, 194. Sheffield: SHEFFIELD ACADEMIC PRESS, 1995. Pp. 160. [pounds]27.50, $41. This revised University of Aarhus Ph.D. dissertation discusses the traditions...

Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages: A Socio-historical Study of Religious Specialists in Ancient Israel.
January 1, 1998... By LESTER L. GRABBE. Valley Forge, Pa.: TRINITY PRESS INTERNATIONAL, 1995. Pp. xviii + 261. $20 (paper). This book examines various forms of religious specialists in ancient Israelite society and attempts to describe their social interaction...

Kom Ombo I, Les inscriptions du naos (sanctuaires, salle de l'enneade, salle des offrandes, couloir mysterieux).
January 1, 1998... By ADOLPH GUTBUB. Texts edited by DANIELLE INCONNU-BOCQUILLON. Cairo: INSTITUT FRANCAIS D'ARCHEOLOGIE ORIENTALE, 1995. Pp. xxxix + 523, 8 plates. With the appearance of Gutbub's seminal study in Textes fondamentaux de la theologie de Kom Ombo...

The Oxford Companion to the Bible.
January 1, 1998... Edited by BRUCE M. METZGER and MICHAEL D. COOGAN. New York: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1993. Pp. xxi + 874, 14 maps and 7 pages of map indices. $45. With the publication of this volume, the Bible joins such subjects as Australian children's...

The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies.
January 1, 1998... By JON D. LEVENSON. Louisville, Ky.: WESTMINSTER/JOHN KNOX PRESS, 1993. Pp. xv + 192. $14.99 (paper). For this interesting and important volume, John Levenson, the Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies at Harvard, has revised and drawn...

Palmyra: Kulturbegegnung im Grenzbereich.
January 1, 1998... Edited by ANDREAS SCHMIDT-COLINET. Zaberns Bildbande zur Archaologie, vol. 27. Mainz am Rhein: PHILIPP VON ZABERN, 1985. Pp. v + 82 (including 126 plates). DM 48. This beautifully illustrated volume edited by Andreas Schmidt-Colinet gathers a...

Isaiah 1-39, with an Introduction to Prophetic Literature.
January 1, 1998... By MARVIN A. SWEENEY. The Forms of Old Testament Literature, 16. Grand Rapids, Mich.: EERDMANS, 1996. Pp. xix + 547. $45 (paper). This latest commentary on the first part of the Book of Isaiah has several elements that make it new: it begins...

The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Writings, Beliefs, and Practices.
January 1, 1998... By FLORENTINO GARCIA MARTINEZ and JULIO TREBOLLE BARRERA. Translated by WILFRED G. E. WATSON. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1995. Pp. ix + 269. HF1 65, $42 (paper). This volume is an English translation of Los Hombres de Qumran, published in 1993....

Near Eastern and Aegean Texts from the Third to the First Millenia BC, vol 2.
January 1, 1998... Sources for the History of Cyprus, vol. 2. Edited by A. BERNARD KNAPP. Altamont, N.Y.: GREECE AND CYPRUS RESEARCH CENTER, INC., 1996. Pp. ix + 92. This plain 8 1/2[inches] x 11[inches] paperbound book is an extremely useful compendium of 122...

A Lexicon of al-Farra's Terminology in His Qur'an Commentary, with Full Definitions, English Summaries and Extensive Citations.
January 1, 1998... By NAPHTALI KINBERG. Handbuch der Orientalistik: Der Nahe und Mittlere Osten, vol. 23. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1996. Pp. 27 (English) + 1004 (Arabic). HFI 598, $386.50. This enormous volume by one of the world's leading authorities on al-Farra...

Die Nahrung der Herzen: Abu Talib al-Makkis Qut al-qulub, vol. 3.
January 1, 1998... Chapters 33-48. Edited and translated by RICHARD GRAMLICH. Freiburger Islamstudien, vol. 41.3. Stuttgart: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 1995. Pp. 722. DM 336. The third volume of Richard Gramlich's excellent and meticulous translation of the Qut...

Abu l-Abbas b. ata: Sufi und Koranausleger.
January 1, 1998... By RICHARD GRAMLICH. Deutsche morgenlandische Gesellschaft, Abhandlungen flit die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 51.2. Stuttgart: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 1995. Pp. vii + 346. DM 184. Abu 'l-Abbas Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Adami, known as Ibn Ata (d....

Dialectologia Arabica: A Collection of Articles in Honour of the Sixtieth Birthday of Professor Heikki Palva.
January 1, 1998... Edited by the FINNISH ORIENTAL SOCIETY. Studia Orientalia, vol. 75. Helsinki: FINNISH ORIENTAL SOCIETY, 1995. Pp. 304. This is the seventy-fifth volume in a series published by the journal Studia Orientalia, the organ of the Finnish Oriental...

Sbahtu! A Course in San ani Arabic.
January 1, 1998... By JANET C. WATSON. Wiesbaden: OTTO HARRASOWITZ, 1996. Pp. xxvii + 324. This is a comprehensive, pedagogically sound San ani Arabic textbook of twenty lessons. It complements the author's (1993) A Syntax of San ani Arabic by the same publisher...

Sudasien-Anthologie: Vierunsvierzig Ubersetzungen aus sudasiatischen Literaturen.
January 1, 1998... Edited by GUNTHER D. SONTHEIMER with collaboration of HELMA WERNY. Beitrage zur Sudasienforschung, Sudasien-Institut, Heidelberg, vol. 140. Stuttgart: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 1993. Pp. xiv + 306. The book is the last publication of the...

The Skill in Means (Upayakausalya) Sutra.
January 1, 1998... Translated by MARK TATZ. Delhi: MOTILAL BANARSIDASS, 1994. Pp. 128. Rs 150. The Skill in Means Sutra is an early Mahayana Buddhist text dating from perhaps the first century B.C.E. The text is extant in three Chinese and two Tibetan...

A Rama Temple in Nineteenth-Century Nepal: History and Architecture of the Ramacandra Temple in Battisputali, Kathmandu.
January 1, 1998... Edited by AXEL MICHAELS. Nepal Research Centre Publications, no. 20. Stuttgart: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 1995. Pp. 81, 21 plates, 5 tables, appendix. DM 48. In March 1994, fourteen students from the Institute for the Comparative Study of...

Inscriptions of Gopaksetra: Materials for the History of Central India.
January 1, 1998... By MICHAEL D. WILLIS. London: BRITISH MUSEUM PRESS, 1996. Pp. 144, 25 black-and-white photos, 3 maps. [pounds]25. This attractively packaged and printed book is a catalogue of inscriptions from the region formerly known as Gopaksetra, defined...

The Householder's World: Purity, Power, and Dominance in a Nepali Village.
January 1, 1998... By JOHN GRAY. Delhi: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1995. Pp. xiv + 302. Rs 450. The book takes up a question that is of interest to both South Asian ethnography as well as ethnological theory as such. Simply put, it states the problem of whether we...

Studies in Mimamsa.
January 1, 1998... Edited by R. C. DWIVEDI. Delhi: MOTILAL BANARSIDASS, 1994. Pp. xvi + 453. Rs 395. These essays, edited by the late R. C. Dwivedi, honor Dr. Mandan Misra, at the time of publication the Vice-Chancellor of the Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya...

John Brough: Collected Papers.
January 1, 1998... Edited by MINORU HARA and J. C. WRIGHT. London: SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON, 1996. Pp. xxii + 533. [pounds]25. This selection of Brough's voluminous output eschews only his major books, The Early Brahmanical...

Die Nahrung der Herzen: Abu Talib al-Makkis Qut al-qulub, vol. 4, Bibliography and Indices.
January 1, 1998... By RICHARD GRAMLICH. Freiburger Islamstudien, vol. 41.4. Stuttgart: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 1995. Pp. 268. DM 164. The third volume of Richard Gramlich's excellent and meticulous translation of the Qut al-qulub brings his German rendition of Aba...