Review: [untitled]

Author(s): David Gordon White

Reviewed work(s):
Asctes et rois: Un monastre de Knphaa Yogis au Npal by Vronique Bouillier
Source: History of Religions, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Feb., 2000), pp. 313-314
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3176424
Accessed: 02/03/2010 04:45
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to History
of Religions.

http://www.jstor.org

History of Religions

313

goal in writing this book was "to bring a preliminaryordering to the Mahavidya
tradition in the hope that it will encourage other scholars to undertakemore detailed studies of the group and of its individual members"(p. 2). He has admirably
realized this goal, and this book should indeed serve as a foundation for further
study of this group. Certainly,there are many topics and issues that are absent in
this book, and some readers will find these absences both glaring and troublesome. For instance, the issue of the representationand role of women in the tantric
traditionis particularlyproblematic,and the few pages that Kinsley devotes to the
topic toward the end of the book do little more than skim the surface of the real
issues that lurkthere.Nonetheless, even given his deliberatelylimited scope, Kinsley has too modestly stated his goals, for one comes away from Tantric Visions
of the Divine Feminine with both a thoroughunderstandingof the individual and
group dynamics of the Mahavidyas, and also with a nuanced appreciationof the
symbolic and devotional world of tantrain the greater Hindu context.
JACOB N. KINNARD

Northwestern University

Ascetes et rois: Un monastere de Kdnphata Yogis au Nepal. By VERONIQUE

BOUILLIER.
Paris: CNRS Editions, 1997. Pp. 263. Fr 245.00.
As recent events in India have reminded us, Hindu sects and religious orders
can be as much a part of the South Asian political scene as political leaders, parties, and coalitions. When one looks at the "theocratic" Visva Hindu Parisad
(VHP), whose links to the ruling BJP are open and uncontested, one finds a
significant numberof sadhus and mahants in its leadership. Among these is Mahant Avaidyanath, the abbot of the preeminent Kanphata Yogi ("Split-Eared"
Yogi) monastery at Gorakhpur(UttarPradesh). MahantAvaidyanath'sactive role
in power politics is in fact but a continuationof the precolonial legacy of the Kanphata Yogis (also known as the Naths or Nath Siddhas), a tantric order whose
memberswere by turnsmercenaries,royal ministers, and power brokersin a number of kingdoms of the subcontinent. One of these was the Gorkha kingdom of
Nepal, which was founded with the active military and political support of the
Naths in 1768.
The Naths were an importantpresence in Nepal long prior to this date, their
leaders serving as rdjgurus (royal preceptors) to a number of kings, including
those of Dang, a kingdom of the Terai whose east-west borders were circumscribed by the Mahabharatand Siwalik mountainranges. It is on the subject of the
intimaterelationshipbetween kings and Naths in the Dang Valley, from its mythic
beginnings down to the present, as refractedthroughCaughera,the principalNath
monastery of the region, that Veronique Bouillier has written this lucid and engaging account. This book is, in a sense, the full fruition of nearly two decades
of writing and (sometimes participatory)ethnological researchthatthis authorhas
devoted to the subject, beginning with her Naftre renoncant: Un caste de Sannyasi villageois au Nepal central (1979) and continuing through a dozen articles
on the social, political, legal, and religious history of the Naths in Nepal.

Book Reviews

314

The scope that Bouillier has chosen for her "case study" of the historical relationship between religion and polity in South Asia is an ideal one, given that
the microcosm of the Caughera monastery in the old Dang kingdom encapsulates the broaderrelationship between Nath religious establishments and political power in Nepal and South Asia as a whole. Bouillier is aware of this and
constantly moves back and forth between the particular"text" of Caughera and
its broaderSouth Asian context.
The book is divided into two parts, "The Monastery as a SpiritualPower" and
"The Monastery as a TemporalPower."It begins with a description of the monastery itself, with the shrines and patternsof worship that form the heartof its religious life, locating this within the broadercontext of the religious universe of
the Nath Yogis and, most particularly,within the triad of the divinized Gorakhnath (the founder of the sect), the tantric god Bhairav, and the Goddess. It then
returnsto the specific case of the monasteryby delving into the hagiographyand
ritual surroundingits legendary founder, Ratannath,both of which combine local
and pan-Indian(if not pan-Asian) traditions.Remaining within the context of the
monastery,Bouillier goes on to describe the ritual calendar of its religious year,
focusing on its principal events: the reinstallation of the abbot (significantly
called the pir: Ratannath'shagiography is more Islamic than Hindu) and the annual pilgrimage to the Devi Patantemple, across the borderingGorakhpurDistrict
of India. Part 1 concludes with an extended discussion of the life of the Yogifrom birth (in the case of janma Yogis) through initiation and inhumation in a
burial tumulus (samddhi)-as well as of "Yogi society" at Caughera. In part 2,
Bouillier presents the readerwith a careful historical study,based to a great extent
on heretofore unexamined inscriptional evidence, royal grants, and tax and land
records. The result is a rich and complex tapestry of the personal and legal relationships that have obtained over the centuries between the Yogis, the kings
whose land grants they received in exchange for their charismatic and strategic
support,and the villages those land grantsgave the Yogis the power to administer.
With her focus on the religious and political lives of human actors, Veronique
Bouillier has provided us with a welcome complement, if not corrective, to the
history-of-ideas focus of most scholarly writings on tantrain medieval and contemporarySouth Asia.
DAVID GORDON WHITE

University of California, Santa Barbara