Hindu Spirituality: Vedas through Vedanta.

• Author: Knipe, David M.

This is the first of two collections of essays on Hinduism in the twenty-five-volume World Spirituality series. Its companion, volume seven, scheduled to appear in 1996, intends to cover the "post-classical" period to the present. Professor Sivaraman has organized this first survey into eight parts. The first three include eight essays discussing the topic of spirituality in the Vedic, epic and sramanic periods, the last period confined to a single essay on Jainism. (Two other volumes in the series have been allotted to Buddhism.) Then follows part four, devoted to Yoga and the grammarians. Parts five and six discuss Vedanta in four essays, while part seven includes essays on "Spirituality and human life," concerned with nature and health (Ayurveda). The concluding part eight is a leap from Caraka into the twentieth century to promote Ramana Maharsi, Sri Candrasekharendra Sarasvati and Anandamayi Ma as "spokespersons" for "the classical spirit" in the contemporary world.

The general impression of this reviewer is that World Spirituality is on the whole an excellent series but this is not the strongest contribution thus far. Fully a third of the authors are retired, a fact that may explain a frequent innocence regarding current issues in Hindu studies and the critical indological advances of the past thirty years. While several essays are innovative, well written, and engaging, some are lackluster and desultory, as if to admit there is nothing new to be said on ancient subjects, while others are frequently uncritical, hagiographic, or sermonizing. When one compares this with the first of two volumes on Buddhist Spirituality, the energy, crispness and even tone of the latter, as well as authorial ease with current lines of inquiry, are entirely evident. Although the target readership of Hindu Spirituality is "the non-specialist" (p. 59, n. 2), some essays are densely laden with terms (all Sanskrit, classical Tamil spiritual traditions being unconsidered). Non-specialists beware: one essay drops thirty Sanskrit technical terms in three pages and not a one is adequately defined in context.

Editorial design has favored Indian textual scholars associated now or previously with universities in India or Canada. No European or American authority on Hinduism is included. Only two of the twenty authors are female, one a practitioner of homeopathic medicine in Italy and co-author of a discussion of the Caraka Samhita the other an author of a...