Richard King teaches religious studies at the University of Stirling, and specializes in "ancient Indian philosophy and religion" (p 184). His Orientalism and Religion is a critical discussion of religious studies' scholarship of Indian thought, religion and culture. It represents an erudite and important contribution to debate on the relationship between colonialism and the Academy. The thesis behind King's book has been extensively argued by Edward Said. However, while Said mainly gives examples from the Middle East and highlights Western perceptions of Islam, King's geographical focus on India brings Hinduism and Buddhism (although not Jainism or Sikhism) centre stage. This enhances its usefulness and significance for those of us who specialize in South Asian Studies. Most practitioners of religious studies like to think that we avoid Said's charges of over generalization, essentialism and caricature but after reading King I am less self-complacent. He convincingly argues that despite our claim to objective scholarship and ideological neutrality, we remain wedded to Western notions and concepts which effectively perpetuate the "us" and "them" divide.

For example, religious studies tends to view religion, especially mysticism, as private, divorced from political issues (p 21). Religious studies tends to view something as "true" if it can be historically verified; non-Westerners may view an account as "true" if it contains truthful insight (p 40). Religious studies tends to privilege secular discourse. Religious studies' textual bias results in an understanding of religion as "idealized doctrinal systems", as "abstract, ahistorical, universal" which "transcend any and all particular historical instances of them" (p 69). Despite recent interest in fieldwork and ethnography (see my In Search of the Sacred: Anthropology and the Study of Religion, London, Cassell, 1996) religious studies' syllabi usually neglect smaller traditions (such as Jainism), indigenous traditions (such as Native American religions) and "little traditions". By focusing on religions that can be studied textually and via a quest for an "essence", religious studies promotes, "a simplistic, essentialist and overly homogenous account of human religiosity" (p 86). King argues that the very concept of "World Religions" (defined as unified, totalitarian traditions) stems in part from religious studies" own exercise of disciplinary power, in a Foucauldian sense. Partly, it reflects Christianity's imperial assumptions (p 68; p 67).

King's chapters on Hinduism and Buddhism (5, 6 and 7) add strength to his argument. As World Religions, he says, these are both nineteenth century creations. Yet they are not simply Western constructs; rather, they derive from encounter and from inter-action between the West and the East. In India today, two groups have recruited the "myth of Hinduism" for their own purposes, and are competing for the prize of defining its "essence". Yet, says King, the idea that Hinduism has an "essence" is a Western construct! (p 117). These rival groups are the Hindu right and such internationally minded Hindu movements as ISKCON and the Ramakrisna Mission. Thus, in as much as the "myth of Hinduism" persists, Indian identity remains under neo-colonial influence. Similarly, Buddhism was constructed as a "pure", "authentic tradition" by Western scholars who had no concern whatsoever for what contemporary Buddhists believed but who turned to ancient texts as their exclusive souces of information (p 150). A quest such as that of the historical Buddha, which paralleled the nineteenth century quest of the historical Jesus, reflected religious studies' "nostalgia for origins" and for historical founders rather than any agenda that Buddhist may have set for the study of their own tradition.

For their part, Buddhists have gladly adopted the Western notion of universal truth (perennialism) and mirror this back to the West in their own apologetics (p 156). King remarks how Western fascination for the "mystic east", reflected in popular media images, explains the attraction of Hindu and Buddhist inspired groups and of much new age mythology (p 142). The danger to which King alerts us is that religious studies, despite its own denial (a point which King may have downplayed) represents an artificial construction of knowledge. A sobering thought indeed! He calls for an "acknowledgment of the cultural particularity of Western concepts and theories" (p 186). As I read him, he wants to liberate religious studies from European captivity. Western modes of discourse claim universal validity; thus, when they encounter alternative accounts of reality they must either sideline or ignore them. For example, "the absence of the mystical in histories of philosophy" effectively "silences the Orient" (p 28). Western science ought to take the claims of Indian science as seriously as it does its own (p 217). The fundamental weakness of religious studies is its view of religion as a free-floating phenomenon, independent of political, social, cultural specificities. King's solution is to rename the discipline as a "type of "cultural studies", which also serves to distance it from Christian theology with which it has long enjoyed a problematical relationship. King does not think that departments of religions should either be subsumed by or located within, faculties of Theology (p 55).

King's own approach would take both text and contemporary religious voices seriously. He would study context and culture, politics and power; he would create discourse between signifiers and signified, between colonized and colonizers. His chapter on "Disciplining Religion" (2) is an important contribution to religious studies' self-understanding. His ability to synthesize religious studies with post-modern, post-colonial and also feminist theory (he refers to a "Foucauldian imprint", p 207) all contributes to the book's usefulness as a tool for exploring issues in South Asian Studies. This reviewer will remain an admirer and a disciple of Said. However, for those of us who concentrate on India, on her history, culture, religions and on her contemporary search for post-colonial identity, King's religious studies contribution may actually displace Said. One regret is that King did not include Sikhism in his analyses. I would be fascinated to hear what he has to say about its emergence as a world religion, especially whether this is moreso a result of its Diaspora than of a discovery by Orientalist scholars.

Clinton Bennett