64 / Religious Studies Review Volume 32 Number 1 / January 2006

FEMALE ASCETICS IN HINDUISM. ByLynn Teskey Denton. Albany, NY: SUNYPress, 2004. Pp. ix + 218. Cloth, $65.50, ISBN0-7914-6179-3; paper, 21.95, ISBN 0-7914-6180-7.

This posthumously published book dealswith women mendicants in the sacred city ofBanaras. Although other significant publica-tions on the topic have been published, this slimvolume is a welcome contribution to the litera-ture. Denton’s book is solidly grounded in eth-nographic fieldwork both among renunciantsand householders, thereby enabling her toexplore the old Dumontian tension betweenasceticism and domesticity. Being a collectionof essays and lectures, rather than an intention-ally structured book, results in some uneven-ness. However, S. Collins, who also contributesa foreword, has provided a useful service to thefield by editing the chapters to eliminate asmany redundancies as possible. M. Khandel-wal, whose own book on the subject wasreleased in 2004, has also contributed anaccompanying bibliography. This book wouldwork well in undergraduate classes on asceti-cism or Hinduism.

Frank J. KoromBoston University

East AsiaCHINESE POETRY AND PROPHECY:THE WRITTEN ORACLE IN EAST ASIA.By Michel Strickmann. Edited by BernardFaure. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,2005. Pp. 218. $24.95, ISBN 0-8047-4335-5.

Strickmann (1942-94), a noted scholar ofChinese religions, left several unfinishedFrench manuscripts. Faure, himself an expert inthese subjects, has been conscientiously shep-herding English versions into print. Like otherpopular French monographs, this book’s styleis more sweeping than most academic tomes.Strickmann’s introduction scathingly indictswestern sinology (and American society morebroadly) for methodological errors, such aspresuming incongruent “popular” and “elite”traditions in Chinese culture, consequentlyneglecting important phenomena like “templeoracles”—written texts used in a ritual wherebya questioner seeks divine guidance, as by con-sulting the I ching or Tarot cards. In fact, Strick-mann’s analysis is not confined to East Asian“numeromantic texts” (like the Ling-ch’i chingand various Taoist materials), but extends toBuddhist, Islamic, and Western contexts. Hemaintains that “the similarities among manticsystems in different cultures are patent andundeniable,” and that the similarities are notcoincidental. The Chinese mantic systems,meanwhile, were “a product of the greatermovement from revelation to routine”: “Fromthe early Middle Ages on, Buddhism, Taoism,

and the secular administration all directed theirefforts to the containment of native spiritualenthusiasm . . . by establishing set forms forritual.” Though rambling, this provocative andwell-documented work will interest many.

Russell KirklandUniversity of Georgia

A COMPANION TO ANGUS C. GRA-HAM’S CHUANG TZU. By Harold D. Roth.Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003.Pp. 241. $18.00, ISBN 0-8248-2643-4.

A reprint of five scholarly articles onChuang-tzu by Graham (1919-91), with a forty-page “colophon” by Roth. The first chaptercomprises “Textual Notes” intended for publi-cation in Graham’s 1981 translation of theChuang-tzu. Specialists will value them, andthe related articles, though most chaptersexpect expertise in classical Chinese. Roth’s“colophon” both explains Graham’s methodsand offers “answers to a number of questionsthat Graham’s research raised, but did notanswer,” including plausible conjecturesregarding the early textual history of theChuang-tzu. Nonspecialists will appreciatechapter 4, “Two Notes on the Translation ofTaoist Classics.” Graham compares selectedtranslations of the Chuang-tzu and Lao-tzu withthe original texts and finds passages where thetranslators succumb to “Rambling Mode”—“meandering from sentence to sentence withoutany sense of direction.” This “translator’sEnglish” leaves readers “a little overawed, likethe Bible reader who where the King Jamesversion loses the thread of the Hebrew or Greeksupposes that God said something too deepfor his present understanding.” This exposéof the “Taoist English” by which westernershave learned the “Oriental Wisdom” reputedlyexpressed in “the Taoist classics” is itself worththe price of the book.

Russell KirklandUniversity of Georgia

CHIKUBUSHIMA: DEPLOYING THESACRED ARTS IN MOMOYAMA JAPAN.By Andrew M. Watsky. Seattle: University ofWashington Press, 2004. Pp. 368; 150 illus.$45.00, ISBN 0-295-98327-2.

This book is the first book-length study inEnglish about Chikubushima, the sacred“Bamboo Grove Island” located on Lake Biwa.While best known as one of the thirty-threeSaikoku pilgrimage temples to the popularbodhisattva Kannon, it was a major center forworshipping the powerful protector GoddessBenzaiten. Watsky’s study is a sophisticatedart-historical analysis of the island’s Benzaiten(or Tsukubushima) Main Hall, which hedescribes as the “most important, though leastwell understood, Momoyama buildings.” Thegoal of this lavished illustrated (with sixty-fourcolor plates) volume is to correct the bias of arthistorians who have typified the art of this era

as “predominantly secular.” By overlooking thereligious aura of buildings like the Main Hall,they have “limited, if not distorted” the analysisof Momoyama art. Much of this book illustrateshow this building exemplifies the notion ofshôgen, the use of ornament to proclaim andcelebrate the sacred. It is a rich analysis of therole of political power, patronage, and personalpiety in the development of Chikubushima’ssacred architecture; a story that Watsky arguesis closely tied to the fortunes of the Toyotomihouse. Watsky’s thesis is that what looks likesecular motifs in the Main Hall are, in fact,“numinous references” to the Pure Land, andspeculates that the core of the building pointsto its original function as a mortuary hall(tamaya), possibly for the Sutemaru, Hidey-oshi’s first born son and heir. In sum, this is anexciting piece of interdisciplinary research intoMomoyama art, religion and politics that ishighly recommended.

Mark MacWilliamsSt.Lawrence University

INVESTING IN MIRACLES: EL SHAD-DAI AND THE TRANSFORMATION OFPOPULAR CATHOLICISM IN THE PHIL-IPPINES. By Katherine L. Wiegele. SoutheastAsia: Politics, Meaning, and Memory, 4. Hono-lulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005. Pp. xi+ 207. Cloth, $50.00, ISBN 0-8248-2795-3;paper, $21.00, ISBN 0-8248-2861-5.

Of all the rapidly growing Christian move-ments in the global south, few have provenmore difficult for scholars to study sympathet-ically, in their own terms, than those associatedwith the prosperity gospel. Indeed, Wiegele’sstudy of El Shaddai is the first account I haveseen that helps us understand what such amovement looks like to its followers. El Shad-dai is noteworthy not only for its size (withroughly 10 million followers, it stands out evenin a field in which giantism is the norm), butalso for the fact that it is the only prosperitygospel movement that has been able to affiliateitself officially with the Catholic Church.Wiegele tells us how the movement developedthese characteristics, but her main focus is onhow its prosperity gospel shapes the outlooksof its members. Her key finding is that follow-ers do not so much even take steps towardbecoming rich—few really do—as they learn toreinterpret their lives, focusing on the goodthings that do happen to them and learning tosee these things as gifts of a supportive God.As Wiegele skillfully shows, it is the move-ment’s ritual process, one focused on prayerrequests, positive confession, healing, and tes-tifying, that is crucial in transforming the waymembers construe their lives. Those interestedin global Christianity, the charismatic move-ment, and the relation between religion andpolitical economy will welcome this carefullyobserved and well-argued study.

Joel RobbinsUniversity of California, San Diego