Self and Self-Transformation in the History of Religions.

• Position: Brief Reviews - Book Review

Self and Self-Transformation in the History of Religions. Edited by DAVID SHULMAN and GUY G. STROUMSA. New York: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2002. Pp. xii + 268. $24.95 (paper).

This collection of essays, originating at a symposium in Israel in April 1998, focuses "on the apparently universal theme of inner transformation" (according to the jacket copy), or "the inherently transformative quality of the self as culturally conceived and understood, in specific cultural and religious systems" (p. 4). The contributors range across space and time from a Sinologist to a specialist in late medieval Catholic Europe.

Of the fifteen pieces (including introduction and "postlude"), about half would be of direct interest to readers of this journal. Three are Indological, those of Ch. Malamoud (Vedic ritual), W. Doniger (Sanskrit epics), and D. Shulman (Tamil Saivism). In addition there are J. Gyatso on Tibetan Buddhism...