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Studies in early Jainism . (Selected research articles.) By Jagdishchandra Jain. pp. 241. New Delhi, Navrang. 1992. Rs. 280.

This is a difficult book to review. It is a varied collection of twenty-five short seminar and conference papers dated from 1973 to 1989, most of which have previously been published elsewhere. The author interprets his title fairly widely: he ranges freely over the centuries from the Vedic era to modern times and discusses the evidence in Jain literature relating to, for example, magical spells (Chapter 8), the disposal of the dead (Chapter 12), the travels of Jain merchants (passim), the status of women (Chapter 21) and much more. Buddhism, as the other great sramana tradition, is the subject of three chapters, the brief Chapter 16 on the Buddha and Mahavira, Chapter 18 on the Buddhist Sarvastivada school as seen by the Jains, and Chapter 24 on the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang (Hsiian-tsang: the author gives very improbable romanisations of the Chinese name in the footnote on p. 195). This chapter is interesting (though based mainly, it seems, on Beal's published translation of Hsiian-tsang's Hsi-yii-chi) but except for a couple of paragraphs from early Jain sources on Nalanda, later the location of the famous Buddhist "university", it has no relation to Jainism. Chapter 23 is headed "Satlin ancient India (with reference to Jain literature)". In fact there is one single-sentence reference from Jain literature. The paper was delivered in 1989, inspired no doubt by the scandal of Roop Kunwar's satiin 1987 (the author gives two totally different dates in 1987 on pp. 185 and 186) to which the author refers in his own strong condemnation of the practice. One gains the impression that these two chapters were thrown in to make up the weight of the book: they are both rather slight and remote from the main theme. The author is certainly impressively familiar with Jain literature, both canonical and noncanonical. An attempt to describe the origin and growth of Prakrit Jain literature (Chapter 15) in three and a half pages tells us little. Contrasted with that, however, he displays his formidable learning on a range of subjects in other chapters, the bhakti cult and its influence on Jain worship (Chapter 22), the science of prognostication (Chapter 20), disposal of the bodies of dead monks (Chapter 12), or magical spells in Prakrit Jain literature (Chapter 8). The core of this book, however, is centred around the learned author's study of the Vasudevahindi (VH), "The wandering of Vasudeva", undertaken in Kiel University between 1970 and 1974, where he had the opportunity of consultation with the late Ludwig Alsdorf. Vasudeva was the father of Krsna (who in Jain belief was cousin to the twenty-second Tirtharikara, Neminatha). The VH, which Dr Jain dates as "decidedly earlier than 600 A.D." (p. 13), or "circa 3rd or 4th century A.D." (p. 25), relates adventures and amorous episodes amongst much other material which seems to have been extensively used by later Jain writers. In Chapters 2 and 6 the author discusses the relationship of the VH to other texts, and particularly to the lost Brhatkatha of Gunadhya, and explores the problem of the missing sections. The version of the Jain Ramayana presented in the VH and its relation to other versions of the Rama story form the theme of Chapter 5. These three chapters contain much valuable analysis and much interesting detail from the stories in the VH but they are not easy reading. More material drawn from the VH and related to other texts is presented in chapters dealing with vidyadharas (spirits with supernatural powers) in the VH, the role of Dharanendra, lord of the Nagas, in Jain mythology, and Jain adaptation of the legend of Visnu's conflict with the demon Bali. Other topics include magical spells, tales of animals, merchants and seagoing trade.