Buddhist Revival in India: Aspects of the Sociology of Buddhism. by Trevor LingReview by: Michael MoffattThe Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Nov., 1982), pp. 189-190Published by: Association for Asian StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2055409 .

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BOOK REVIEWS-SOUTH ASIA 189

elections, and a free press. In successive chapters, Kulkarni details the dimensions of conflict in Indian society: the "Communal Canker," "Linguistic Intolerance," "Bureau- cratic Stranglehold," "Violent Workers," "Student Rebellion," and "Man's Inhu- manity to Man," the last referring to caste wars, particularly directed against the Harijans, which Kulkarni points out are altogether new phenomena on the Indian scene.

What is the solution? Kulkarni recommends a strong president, a nonpolitician with an ability to display "perception and judgment, an understanding of political and social forces and an insight into human motives. He must possess great reservoirs of tact, initiative and patience. He must have knowledge and preferably experience of the affairs of government and administration" (p. 358). He should be elected by judges of the Supreme Court and the high courts and have a council of advisors of men and women of knowledge, ability, and experience, drawn from varied walks of life. The president should be regarded as the "Ultimate Authority," who should step in and even take over the government himself if there is "deterioration in the law and order situation, if it finds itself unable to curb social and economic offences and allow unrest to grow in the country." In other words, the conditions in which the "President's Rule" is proclaimed in the states should be made applicable at the national level as well. The existence of such an authority should serve as a check on the Council of Ministers who at present ride roughshod on the strength of their majority in Parliament.

The proponents of enhanced presidential authority have come from different quarters, including A. R. Antulay, Nani Palkhivala, J. R. D. Tata, and, indeed, Indira Gandhi. The post-Independence history of relations between heads of govern- ment and state has not been happy in India. The crucial significance of the presiden- tial powers under the present constitution was demonstrated in the dying days of the Janata rule when President Reddy, flouting Morarji's advice, called on Charan Singh to form a government. In a plural society like India, without a charismatic national leader or a party with a majority in Parliament, the presidential role, even without the extraordinary powers advocated by Kulkarni, can be crucial for the process of politics. It would be hard, however, to assume that the gargantuan problems facing India can be resolved merely by the creation of an "Ultimate Authority."

D. R. SARDESAI

University of California, Los Angeles

Buddhist Revival in India: Aspects of the Sociology of Buddhism. By TREVOR LING. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980. vii, 134 pp. Notes, Biblio- graphical References, Index. $22.50 (cloth).

Buddhist Revival in India is about the original decline of Indian Buddhism and its chances for a resurgence in modern India. In the first third of the book, Trevor Ling toys with various theories concerning the nature of early Indian Buddhism and eventually decides that it declined because of Brahmanical opposition and the economic dislocations caused by the Islamic invasions. In the remainder of the book, Ling discusses neo-Buddhism-Ambedkar's reasons for creating it, its chances for revitalizing the scheduled castes, and its general religious appeal. He asserts that Burmese Buddhism has been a less-than-progressive force and largely writes off Indian neo-Buddhism for the same predicted reason (although he contradictorily

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190 JOURNAL OF ASIAN STUDIES

notes at some length that the Burmese and Indian contexts are so different as to make the comparison of their Buddhisms almost impossible).

Finally, at the end of the book, with virtually no adumbration, Ling makes a sociologically peculiar distinction between Buddhism as a specific "received, total cultural pattern" (e.g., Sinhalese Buddhism, neo-Buddhism) and Buddhism as a "philosophical element in a personal way of life." Only in the latter element does Ling see any hope for modern secularizing India; the former is almost always tainted by sectarianism and communalism, Ling seems to feel. This conclusion is particularly hard to evaluate, because the book mostly concerns specific Buddhisms, and one is hard pressed to understand what Ling's philosophical Buddhism is all about.

The topics treated in Buddhist Revival are important ones, but the book is unconvincing in arguing them. It is poorly written. In most chapters, the reader has no idea of the general point until she/he has worked through a waffly series of "on the other hand." Much of the material treated (often with lengthy excerpts from dated works) is irrelevant to the main argument. The book is not based on firsthand research, and the secondary material is incomplete: the early Buddhist exegesis is unimpressive; half the references in two chapters are to a single work (Dhananjay Keer's Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission, 1962); and little knowledge is shown of recent anthropological work on scheduled castes or on the Dalit movement. Finally, it is particularly annoying to find in a 134-page book the periodic disclaimer that space does not allow the author further to develop certain key points.

MICHAEL MOFFATT

Rutgers University

Outline of Hindi Grammar. By R. S. McGREGOR. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. xxxiii, 261 pp. N.p.

This is a book that ought to be in the hands of every student and every teacher of Hindi as a foreign language. It will be equally useful to a native scholar of Hindi who is interested in the discipline of Hindi grammar, because it is full of insights regarding the way the language works, about which a native scholar is likely to have blind spots. What is said above also applies to Urdu, and the book can be useful to students and teachers of Urdu as well. The script used in the book is, of course, Devanagari, but every word, phrase, and sentence in the book, except for the exercises and reading passages, is transliterated in roman characters (systematically used to represent phonemic values). It should pose no serious problem to those who already control the Urdu script or are in the process of doing so, and there certainly is a great deal for them to gain from whatever extra effort the use of the book might involve.

The book has a total of 194 pages, of which 22 are devoted to the introduction. The first part, about modern standard Hindi, although short, is useful. It concisely but clearly gives information about the dialect base of the language, its vocabulary sources, and the norms of usage and pronunciation. The section on the script is equally helpful, but the same unfortunately cannot be said about the presentation of the sound system. The description of the sounds, although essentially correct, will not be helpful to a student of Hindi unless he is linguistically trained. The concise statements on stress are valuable, but some remarks on the vowel length and sentence rhythm in Hindi as contrasted with those of English would have been helpful.

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