Content area
Full Text
Open Boundaries: Jain Communities and Cultures in Indian History. Edited by JOHN E. CORT. SUNY Series in Hindu Studies. Wendy Doniger, editor. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. viii, 264 pp. $24.95 (paper).
This collection of essays, resulting from a conference panel in 1991 and a workshop in 1993, is a welcome addition to the existing scholarship on Jains and Jainism. Despite the publication of several books in recent years, Jain culture and thought are still poorly understood relative to those of Buddhists and Hindus. The ten essays contained in this volume, written largely by scholars of religion and/or literature, treat a wide range of topics including poetic theory, yoga, ideologies of kingship, conversion myths, temple ritual, religious women, and historiography. Although alike in the high quality of their scholarship, these essays are so different in subject matter, methodologies, and concerns that the volume might be perceived as lacking coherence if it dealt with another religious tradition. Given the current state of Jain studies, however, Open Boundaries:Jain Communities and Cultures in Indian History not only significantly advances our general knowledge but...