322 Journal of the American Oriental Society 125.2 (2005)

through the juxtaposition of the bdnl of the bhagats with that of the Gurus, between the views of theproponents of the newly emerging Sikh faith and those of the new faith's spiritual precursors. The AG,rather than being a monochromatic hymnal containing a set of ideologically compatible compositions,becomes something much more dynamic: a text in which Sikh Gurus not only espouse particular doc-trines, but engage, as it were, in active exchange with their precursors. By demonstrating how this mightbe the case, Pashaura Singh has altered the way scholars are likely to view the bhagat bdnl in the future.

MICHAEL C. SHAPIROUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Seeking Bduls of Bengal. By JEANNE OPENSHAW. University of Cambridge Oriental Publications,vol. 60. Cambridge: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2002. Pp. xii + 288, illus.

Bauls are idealized as emblems of Bengali folk culture. In popular imagination in West Bengaland Bangladesh they are lone wandering minstrels, free of the strictures of society, who express theirreligious beliefs in folk songs. They are known for their condemnation of the caste system and arecelebrated as symbols of Hindu-Muslim harmony. While on the one hand they are exoticized andromanticized, on the other they are demonized, sometimes for the very same qualities for which theyare admired, i.e., their lack of respect for boundaries of caste and religion. They have also been con-demned for their sexual and scatological practices, when these have become known.

The present anthropological study is a revision of part of Jeanne Openshaw's doctoral thesis sub-mitted to the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London in 1993; the sectioncontaining the autobiography of the Hindu Baul composer Raj Khyapa is included in another book tobe published at a later date. The book is based on fieldwork over a period of seven years from 1983to 1990 conducted in West Bengal, largely with Hindu Bauls both male and female, although Openshawinterviewed Muslim Bauls as well. Openshaw carried out her research primarily in the Rarh area in thesouthwest of the state among Bauls who are Jat Vaishnavas (Vaishnavas by caste) and in the Bagriarea in Nadia and Murshidabad districts, where she studied the lineage of Raj Khyapa (1869-1946/7).The main focus of her research is "Raj's people" {rajer lok), as they call themselves, through whomOpenshaw had access to unique material. She not only interviewed Raj Khyapa's followers, includinga couple of his direct disciples who had firsthand knowledge of him, but also had access to autographmanuscripts of his writings comprising almost two hundred songs, an autobiography, treatises on theoryand esoteric practice, and an account book. To my knowledge, these are the first manuscripts written inthe hand of the Baul who composed them and the first autobiographical account 6f a Baul poet's life,since Bauls do not reveal the details of their lives before initiation. Even authentic biographies of Baulgurus by their disciples are unknown.'

This pathbreaking book debunks stereotypes which, although not totally false, give distorted picturesof Bauls. It also points out fallacies in previous scholarship on Bauls and aims to present them in theirown image. The picture that emerges is much more complex and nuanced than in earlier studies. Thesestudies, Openshaw argues, reify and essentialize Bauls, wrongly depicting them as comprising a moreor less unified and homogeneous group. While maintaining that there is a core of characteristics thatconstitute Baul or bartamdn-panthi (see below) identity, Openshaw does not draw artificial lines aroundBauls. Rather, she emphasizes their radicalism, diversity and creativity, their ability constantly to absorbnew ideas and come up with new interpretations. Previous studies were often based on collections ofBaul songs by many different poets, decontextualized and interpreted according to the scholar's pre-conceptions. Openshaw focuses on Raj Khyapa's lineage in order to present a detailed, contextual

1. The biography of the renowned Baul poet Lalan Fakir, purportedly by his disciple Duddu Shah, that came tolight in the 1960s is a forgery motivated by the desire to give him Muslim parentage and claim him for Islam.

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study, instead of an overgeneralized one relying mainly on a disparate collection of songs. Previousstudies were also often based on material collected only from male Baul musicians. In order to correctthis bias, Openshaw centers her study on "Raj's people," who are initiates but who do not earn theirlivelihood from singing, and she interviewed both male and female practitioners. She also concentrateson this group because it stresses elements not emphasized in earlier studies, among which is its highvaluation of women.

The book is divided into five parts ("Background: Literature on Bauls and Baul Songs," "In Searchof Bauls," "Received Classifications," "Reworking the Classifications," and "Practice [sadhand] andTalking about Practice [hari-katha]") consisting of two chapters each, plus an introduction and con-clusion. The following summary cannot do justice to the richness of the material in the book and thecomplexity of its arguments.

Chapters one and two are devoted to secondary works on Bauls, including official colonial sourcesand Bengali scholarly and literary texts. In chapter one, "What's in a Name? The Advent of 'the Baul',"Openshaw traces the changes that the image of Bauls underwent from the nineteenth century down tothe present, placing these changes in the context of the historical, political, religious and social trends ofthe time. Early sources dating back to the 1870s project a negative view of Bauls as low-class enter-tainers and as Hindu Vaishnavas or Bairagis (Vaishnava renouncers) belonging to many different sam-praddys (sects or traditions) who perform immoral sexual and scatological acts. Towards the end of thenineteenth century, when Bengalis, inspired by nationalist sentiments, began to take a renewed interestin their folk culture, the image of Bauls underwent rehabilitation. An idealized, spiritualized stereotypefashioned largely by Rabindranath Tagore and his associate Ksitimohan Sen, and still prevalent todayin middle-class Bengali society, depicts Bauls as lone, wandering mystics, whether Hindu or Muslim,with no sectarian affiliations, who do not require a female partner to attain realization. More recently, anovergeneralized view propounded by Upendranath Bhattacarya in his book Bangldr Baul o Baul gan("Bauls of Bengal and Baul Songs") (Calcutta: Orient Book Company, 1957-58), the first study to bebased on extensive fieidwork and to focus on Bauls' esoteric aspect, portrays Bauls as a single religioustradition (dharma sampraday), separating the "real" from the "fake,"

Chapter two, "The Making of the Bauls: Histories, Themes, Baul Songs," concerns scholarly con-structions of Baul identity, Openshaw gives an overview of different scholarly opinions regarding theirdate of origin, placed anywhere from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century, the religious traditionfrom which they are presumed to have sprung, posited variously as Upanishadic Hinduism, Buddhism,Vaishnavism, Sufism, and materialism (lokayata), and their defining features as determined from songs.She argues convincingly that these approaches are flawed since scholars mistakenly assume that "thename Baul denotes a sect, a sampraday (tradition), a cult, an order of singers, a community, a spirit, aclass of mystic, a religionin short an entity of some kind" (p, 56), and that this entity has an unbrokenhistory that can be traced back to its beginnings. Moreover, the defining features are arbitrarily selectedfrom a vast body of disparate songs and applied across the board to all Bauls, Openshaw dismissessuch approaches as irrelevant to her aim of presenting Bauls in their own image, explaining that Baulsreject all knowledge not based on direct experience, and so are unconcerned with tracing their past. Inthe second half of the chapter, Openshaw turns to a discussion of Baul songs. She remarks upon the lackof consensus among scholars regarding how to define a Baul song and concludes that the assumptionthat there is a "clearly defined genre of 'real' Baul songs" (p, 63) is incorrect. Although songs com-posed by Bauls and dealing with topics related to Baul practice and philosophy constitute the core ofBaul songs, those composed by non-Bauls or uninitiated amateur Bauls written in a "Baul style" cannotbe summarily excluded from the corpus any more than their composers can be rejected as "fake" Bauls,Openshaw stresses that Baul songs, which are often encoded, can have multiple interpretations andlevels of interpretation, with new interpretations continually being added. There is no "rigid adherenceto a symbolic code" (p, 70), This, she points out, makes translating the songs a nearly impossible task.Even if extensive commentary is included, she argues, it imposes undue fixity, since it is not possibleto anticipate new interpretations.

In chapters three and four, "Fieidwork in Rarh" and "Fieidwork in Bagri," Openshaw presentsfurther evidence for her argument that the word baul has been substantialized and reified "into a fixedand exclusive identity for certain kinds of rural practitioners and even into a sampraday [sect]" (p, 112),

324 Journal of the American Oriental Society 125,2 (2005)

when in fact there is no such unified and homogenous phenomenon. She contrasts the differing viewsof Bauls held by bhadralok (Western educated middle-class) society in Rarh and by rural gentry inBagri, and discusses how these views affect the attitudes towards a Baul identity held by those whoidentify themselves as Bauls or who are identified as such by others. In the Santiniketan area of Rarh,due to the influence of the Tagorean image, Bauls are generally viewed in a positive light and not onlydo Bauls there proudly proclaim their Baul identity, but even bhadralok may take on a Baul persona,dressing in Baul-like fashion and singing Baul songs or writing them. In contrast, in Bagri where thebhadralok stereotype is not prevalent, Baul identity is not regarded as desirable and few are anxiousto proclaim themselves Bauls, While Raj Khyapa and his followers are called Baul by outsiders, theyrarely apply the term to themselves. Since the term baul is a loaded word, full of contradictory con-notations and false implications of unity, and since its use would place Openshaw in the untenableposition of referring to people as Bauls who themselves reject that appellation, she avoids the term, pre-ferring instead bartaman-panthi "followers of the path of bartaman"; here bartaman, lit,, "existent,"refers to what can be perceived by the senses.

Chapter five, "Two Shores, Two Refuges: Householder and Renouncer," discusses the distinctivefeatures of the categories of householder and renouncer among bartaman-panthi?,. In particular, ittouches on the absence of a sharp divide between them, the practice of taking renunciation and ini-tiation jointly with one's partner rather than individually, and the tendency, especially among "Raj'speople," not to idealize renouncer society but to see the same fiaws in it that are present in householdersociety. Chapter six, "Evading the Two Shores: The Guru," argues that the supremacy of the male guruamong bartamdn-panthls, used by scholars as evidence that Bauls have a continuous tradition and areeven a sampraday, is actually undermined by a variety of factors, including the notion that the femaleis not only her partner's guru but is the mul (primary) or asal (true) guru. More than many bartaman-panthi lineages. Raj Khyapa and his followers attempt to steer a middle path between "the structuredworlds of householder and renouncer" (p, 157); they stress egalitarianism and the individual realizationof the practitioner over the hierarchical relationship that exists between the guru and disciple.

Chapter seven, "Affect: Love and Women," contrasts conventional householder society which hasa social system based on caste, is characterized by discrimination and ill will {hinsd), and dominated bythe male, with the ideals and traits of bartamdn-panthi society, which recognizes only one^'af (caste),the human being, or alternatively two, male and female, is characterized by love (prem), and raiseswomen to a position of supremacy. Belief in the oneness of all human beings, Openshaw contends,leads to a focus on emotions. She emphasizes that bartamdn-panthis practice what they preach, treatingpeople simply as human beings without concern for status or identity. Chapter eight, "Theory: Images,the T and bartaman," discusses the human being, in particular the female partner, as the focus ofbartamdn-panthi devotion, in preference to an image of a deity, which is rejected as anumdn (lit,, "con-jecture"; the term connotes canonical religion and is the opposite of bartamdn). It also explains thebartamdn-panthi concept of the self. Raj Khyapa and other bartamdn-panthls argue that since the self,identified with semen and menstrual blood and therefore not separate from the body, is the same ineveryone, there can be no distinctions between the self and others (Span-par).

Chapter nine, "Practice," argues that scholarship on esoteric practice is full of overgeneralizationsand misguided attempts at systematization. While the esoteric practices of bartamdn-panthis follow thesame broad outlines, there is little uniformity in the individual practices, the techniques used, and thetheories behind the practices. Moreover, in talking about sddhand (practice), practitioners may use dif-ferent models at different times, depending on the context, or even different models at the same time.In addition, these models may only be sketchily drawn and subject to reinterpretation. Models of thefemale body in particular, Openshaw points out, are vague. Since the female is held to be self-perfected,sddhand is primarily for the benefit of the male and described from the male perspective, Openshawalso provides new details about sddhand. Previous studies have discussed the practice of seminal re-tention during sexual intercourse, Openshaw found that while preventing ejaculation is extremely im-portant, total seminal retention is not always advocated. Rather, during the central sddhand performedwhen the female partner is menstruating, some emission may be sanctioned.

As the title " 'Four Moons' Practice and Talking about Practice" indicates, the final chapter takes uptwo subjects. The first section gives an overview of variations in concepts as well as practices relatingto the "four moons" (semen, menstrual blood, feces, and urine). It also touches on the rationales for the

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four-moon practices, including reversing of the downward flow that leads to bodily decay and death,replenishing of the body with vital substances that have been lost, regaining wholeness (in the case ofthe male) through the ingestion of menstrual blood, and recycling vital elements in order to thickenand refine them. The second section focuses on the highly creative ways bartamdn-panthis play withlanguage when they talk about sddhand, which Openshaw likens to "a fire consuming any fixed po-sition" (p, 236), They constantly reinterpret myths and stories, often coming up with new interpreta-tions that are more convincing than conventional ones, invent creative etymologies that reveal hiddenesoteric meanings of words, and assign symbolic meanings to names of divinities and holy figures andto Vaishnava and Islamic terminology and sayings. Their talk is replete with quotes from song and withriddles, puns, and code words that frequently have multiple referents. Among the purposes of encodedtalk about sadhand are self-protection, separation of the initiated from the uninitiated, and also just fun.

The conclusion challenges the views of scholars of the subaltern project. In particular, it refutesPartha Chatterjee's contention that subalterns have failed "to construct an alternative universal to thedominant dharma" (p, 240), pointing out that bartamdn-panthis do indeed construct a universalfocused on the human being. It also summarizes the main aspects of bartaman-panthi identity dis-cussed in the book, such as participating in esoteric body-centered practices, arguing that it is actuallyan anti-identity; bartamdn-panthis subvert identity with their "conscious eclecticism" and "cavalierattitude to traditional contents and structures" (p, 244), In addition, the conclusion restates an importanttheme of the book, namely, that the social radicalism of bartamdn-panthis cannot be separated fromtheir esoteric theories and practices,

I conclude with some minor criticisms and a few points for consideration. As Openshaw rightlyasserts, too few studies place Baul songs in their performance contexts, and published collections havebeen poorly and uncritically edited. She is also rightly critical of scholars who "are preoccupied witha search for the unique and definitive text" under the false assumption that "a song composed by oneindividual must imply one correct version of which others are corruptions" (p, 65), This approach,she contends, "encourages the idea of a system, the tyranny of text over performance, tradition overcreativity," However, a textual approach should not be dismissed out of hand, particularly if one wishesto make an edition of a poet's collected songs, on the grounds that previous editions were arbitrarilyedited by scholars who tended "to 'correct' the songs in the light of their own understanding," and whodid not use text-critical methods. To be sure, the text-critical approach may not be appropriate in allcases. Whether it can be successfully applied depends on the nature of the transmission of the songsby the poet's lineage.

The songs of Lalan Fakir, for example, are passed down both orally and in notebooks, some ofwhich were written down by Lalan's direct disciples who acted as his scribes. The oral versionsmemorized by Lalan-panthi fakirs are remarkably close to those in the oldest surviving notebooks,indicating that the songs have been transmitted with little change. The fakirs clearly do have a notionof a fixed, authentic text which they attempt to reproduce in performance. They consider it anathemato alter the words of a song by Lalan^ and will criticize a singer for placing Lalan's name in the sig-nature line of a song composed by another poet. Due to the faithful transmission of the songs, it ispossible, using text-critical principles, such as preferring the lectio difficilior and choosing the readingor version that has the greatest documentary as well as intrinsic probability, to arrive at a text that isclose to that composed by Lalan, although, it is true, as Openshaw states, that such a text cannot be saidto be absolutely "definitive,"

Neither collecting songs directly from performance alone, nor relying solely on manuscripts issufficient for obtaining a reliable text. If a singer performing in public forgets the words to a song,he or she is obliged to cover up for the memory lapse. For this reason, the singers have warned meagainst collecting songs directly from performance, belying the notion that "the performance is thetext," Depending solely on notebooks written, for the most part, by semi-literate scribes is alsofraught with problems. The notebooks are difficult to read, full of scribal errors, and written in non-standard orthography with words run together. The best way to obtain a reliable text is to compareboth oral renditions and versions obtained from the oldest surviving notebooks and to select the mosttrustworthy version as an exemplar, indicating all significant variants in the notes so that the reader may

2, Saktinath Jha, Phakir Lalan Sai: des, kal evam silpo (Calcutta: Satpbad, 1995), 158,

326 Journal of the American Oriental Society 125,2 (2005)

reconstruct each version. It is also important to discuss both the text and meanings of the songs withat least one singer, to make sure that the text has been correctly deciphered, for it is easy, even for ascholar who knows the tradition well, to misconstrue esoteric code words and obscure vocabulary fromKushtia dialect. Emendations to the exemplar, if needed, should be made applying the same principlesof textual criticism used to select the exemplar, ^ When more than one reading or version of a song isdetermined to be original, as for example, in Lalan's song "eman manab janam" and the variant ver-sion "eman manus janam," the variants can be given in the notes with an explanation that they are asprobable as the readings in the text,"* Alternately, all variant versions may be published separately,

Openshaw argues for the need of a term other than bdul to indicate the common identity that prac-titioners recognize with other lineages. However, no such noun exists, perhaps because as Openshawexplains, practitioners tend to deny any fixed identity, often preferring to call themselves simply manus"human beings," While bartamdn is one of several terms adepts use to describe their own lineages andto indicate their common bond and shared identity with other Hindu and Muslim groups, Openshawadmits that they do not refer to themselves as bartamdn-panthls. Rather, they say that they are "inbartamdn" or that they "follow bartaman." She adopts bartamdn-panthi nonetheless as a "short-handterm" (p, 115), presumably to avoid awkward phrases such as "those who follow bartamdn'' I shareOpenshaw's uneasiness with this solution, but it does seem preferable to using "Baul" in an over-generalized sense,

Openshaw attributes the discrepancy between the large number of Hindu Bauls in Rarh and Bagriwho are renouncers and the small number of Muslim Bauls or fakirs who have taken initiation to the"absence of an ideal of renunciation in Islam" (p, 99), However, renunciation {zuhd) is indeed a centralideal in Sufism, While some Sufis do participate in worldly affairs, others are reclusive and live in self-denial and poverty. Moreover, many of the Muslim practitioners I worked with in Bangladesh in Jessoreand Kushtia were renouncers or khildphatdhdrls (lit,, "wearers of the cloak"). Thus there must be otherreasons for the discrepancy, which remains to be explained.

This book is a tour de force, certainly the best book in English on the subject. It looks at Bauls withfresh eyes, is both thoughtful and thought-provoking, and provides many new insights into the subject.The book reflects Openshaw's dedication to her subject and admiration of the people she studied fortheir humanism and resistance in the face of opposition and persecution. It will no doubt transformthe way in which scholars view Bauls, It may even change popular perceptions, "Lalon," a recent filmon Lalan Fakir made in Bangladesh by Tanvir Mokammel lists Openshaw in the credits as one of thescholars whose works aided the director, and I detect her book's influence on it,

CAROL SALOMONUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

3, For more details and a sample of an edited song, see my paper "On Editing the Songs of Lalan Fakir UsingOral and Written Sources," in Devotional Literature in South Asia: Current Research 1997-2000. Proceedings of theEighth International Conference on Early Literature in New Indo-Aryan Languages, Leuven, 23-26 August 2000,ed. Winand Callewaert and Dieter Taillieu (Delhi: Manohar, 2002), 181-90,

4, Both versions are given in the notebook that belonged to Lalan's disciple Bholai Sai, the oldest survivingnotebook that has come to light, containing portions dating from 1893, just three years after Lalan's death. See p, 1,song no, 4 of Jha's edition.

China-Literatur in der Universitdtsbibliothek Leipzig, 1500-1939: Eine systematische Bibliographie.Two volumes. By THOMAS JANSEN, with the assistance of Gabriele Schlesinger, Richard Teschke,and Katharina Zinn, Leipzig: LEIPZIGER UNIVERSITATSVERLAG, 2003, Pp, 523, 409, 98,

On June 1, 1878, Hans Georg Conon von der Gabelentz (1840-1893) was appointed Super-numerary Professor of East Asian Languages at the University of Leipzig, marking the beginning of