Devotion Divine: Bhakti Traditions from the Regions of India: Studies in Honour of Charlotte Vaudeville.

• Author: Bolle, Kees W.

Fifteen scholars congregate here to pay honor to Charlotte Vaudeville, the scholar most renowned especially for her works pertaining to bhakti literature and practices. No wonder that most of the tributes in the present volume are also related to that subject, of which the significance cannot be overestimated. Following an encomium of Professor Vaudeville by the editors, pages xiii-xvii in the front matter list the works by Charlotte Vaudeville - including twelve books between 1955 and 1986. In addition, the list at the time of this volume's publication mentions two more books plus three more articles meant to appear in print.

In a brief review, it is difficult to make choices in such a wonderful collection. It seems to me that as a tribute to Charlotte Vaudeville, the contribution by Francoise Mallison stands out. It deals with a specific area, Gujarat; a specific cult, the one of Ranachoda; a specific text, the Sanskrit sthalapurana of the site; and last, but not least, it does not spend time on theories, but with great sensitivity, almost modestly, presents the features of the god worshipped and the worshippers who eulogize him. Her account is vivid. The reader begins to feel personally drawn toward the countless pilgrims present in the temple's many feasts during the year. The vividness is the more striking, since many of the characteristic elements of local cults are known throughout India: the deity of Visnu with the Krsna avatara, and the text of the myth, the Dankapura mahatmya, among its many themes, elaborates on the linkage of Visnu and Siva, and so on. The essay is illustrated with pictures, including one of the temple at Dakar. (Among the few editorial errors in the volume is the absence of any reference on the page with pictures to the publication from which they were taken.)

Singling out one article does not at all mean that other contributions are negligible! The volume is arranged alphabetically in accordance with the names of the authors (perhaps to prevent reviewers from making a hasty choice). Certainly, any thematic arrangement would have been difficult to make in the variety of contributions. The series of essays begins with Ali S. Asani's "The Ginan Literature of the Ismailis of Indo-Pakistan." This inclusion of a Muslim tradition adds considerably to our understanding of the wide compass of bhakti as a specific phenomenon, resisting external categories of regions or religious lore. The article has many interesting...