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ONATHAN EDWARDS (1703-58), the American theologian who for two hundred fifty years has terrified readers with his escription of an angry God, had little but contempt for Indian religions. When trying to refute English Nonconformist John Taylor's notion of an innate human capacity for religious knowledge, Edwards played American Indians as his trump card. What did Europeans find when they came to America and discovered a people who had had the benefit of thousands of years to develop this in-born capacity for religious truth? Nothing but "the grossest ignorance, delusions, and most stupid paganism."' As one might expect of a man not uncomfortable with paradox, however, Edwards's views over time demonstrated more nuance and subtlety than this harsh proclamation suggests. For seven years, Edwards served as a missionary pastor to the Indians of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. During that period, he seems to have approached the population he was enlisted to serve as a test case of the effectiveness of the work of redemption. His findings, perhaps not surprisingly, ultimately tell us more about his own mind than they do about the Indians or God's work among them.

Intellectual traditions grow through a process of critical assessment, and Pathways: Approaches to the Study of Society in India is an important contribution in this area. The autobiographical element makes the essays in this book specially interesting. Works of this kind are rare in the social sciences in India, and the present book provides an excellent model for further research. The book is divided into two parts: 'Pathfinders' and 'In Search of a Path'. In 'Pathfinders' Professor Madan critically examines aspects of the work of several outstanding scholars who span two generations - his teachers, D.P. Mukerji and D.N. Majumdar and others, M.N. Srinivas, Louis Dumont, David Mandebaum and Milton Singer, who have influenced his work in different but important ways. His discussion of the work of these scholars includes a commentary on the major theoretical and methodological perspectives which have illumined the study of society in India during the last fifty years. In this part of the book he dwells on functionalism, structuralism, marxism, cultural analysis and ethnomethodology. 'In Search of a Path' is an account of the author's 'engagement' with anthropology. He describes how his conception of anthropology has changed over time. Professor Madan ends the book with interesting and insightful comments on some of the substantive concerns of Indian sociology, such as the social construction of ethnicity and intellectual responses to the modern West. He seeks understanding through cultural comparison throughout these essays in the book. Professor T.N. Madan is a senior member of the faculty at the Institute of Economic Growth (University of Delhi). He is Honorary Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland and Docteur Honoris Causa of the University of Paris X (Nanterre). His recent publications include Non-renunciation: Themes and Interpretations of Hindu Culture (OUP, 1987), Family and Kinship: A study of the Pandits of Rural Kashmir, second enlarged edition (OUP, 1989) and as editor Religion in India (OUP, 1991).

Oxford in India Readings in Sociology and Social Anthropology have been carefully planned to suit and needs of the general reader, students, teachers, as well as scholars from other disciplines. Problems have been posed in general theoretical terms, but Indian enthnography has been used as far as possible to illustrate them. Each volume is devoted to a core areas in sociology and social anthropology and brings within one cover important writings, some of which are very difficult to find. In this way it serves the useful purpose of short-circuiting the vast body of writing in a discipline, and at the same time presenting the current state of art in it. Religion in India attempts to capture the great diversity of religious phnomena in India. All the great religions of the world - Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Zoroastrianism are found within the geographical confines of the country, affecting the lives of its people in a vital way. Religion is a central concern in sociological and anthropological investigations and this volume tries to cover all the major theoretical approaches to its study evolutionary, functionalist, structuralist, cultural analytical, phenomenological and hermeneutic. The readings have been organized under five sections: Sacred Knowledge, Sacred Space, Sacred Time, Sacred Person and Reorientations to the Sacred. They offer the best of recent work as well as some celebrated classical writings in the field. The volume editor has a long introduction followed by short section introduction explaining the ratioanale behind his selections in each section. He also intervenes explain the text when he feels it to be necessary in the form of editiorial notes. This paperback edition has an additional article. Each section ends with an annoted biblography of additional readings and there is an exhaustive bibliography at the end of the book.

Traditional religious practices of Native Americans are inseparably bound to land and natural formations. These may be places where spirits dwell, where sources of power are, spots where spirits often reveal themselves. A relationship to specific physical areas is fundatmental in traditional Native American religions. From one generation to the next, continuity of spiritual and traditional belief is maintained through the natural world. Tribal religious do not incorporate a set of established truths (theological doctrines) as do western religions; rather they are based on the performance of rituals and ceremonies, many at specific sites, which have the ability to generate new "revelations," These sites are often related to tribal creation stories and other historical events of religious significance. For many tribal religions, there is not alternative place of worship. When freedom of religion is discussed in the context of traditional Indian religion, it is the right of practitioners to maintain relationships with the natural world that is at issue. Many sites sacred to Indian religions are located on what is currently federal land (or the subject of activities which are, at least in part, federally funded). Thus, actions of federal agencies (and specifically federal land managers) are of great importance to traditional Indian religious practitioners. As has historically been the case in regard to the Indian's relaitonship with the land, the institutions of the federal government frequently have failed to respect the needs of Indians where incompatible with the needs and philosophy of western society. Specifically, where western notions of resource development, i.e., logging, mining, tourism, conflict with the preservation of the integrity and sanctity of sacred sites, the inclination of most governmental (and private) authorities is to recognize and understand the goals and needs of those who want to develop, but not the deep-seated religious beliefs of Indians who might be affected by that development. The Supreme Court's interpretation of the First Amendment reflects this historical insensitivity, if not callousness. Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protection Assocation, 485 U.S. 439 (1988) involved the construction of a road (the G-O Road) by the Forest Service which would marginally improve access to timber and recreational resources. The Forest Service's own expert found that the construction of the road was potentially destructive of "ceremonies... which constitute the heart of the Northwest [Indian] religious beliefs and practices." Both the federal district court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that the government's interest in building the road did not justify the destruction of the Indian religions that utilized the affected sites. The United States Supreme Court reversed, ruling that such a balancing test was not applicable to the government's management of its land. It ruled in favor of the Forest Service based upon a conclusion that the "freedom of religion" clause in the First Amendment does not restrict the government's management of its lands so long as: (1) the government's purpose is secular and not specifically aimed at infringing upon a religion; and (2) the government's action does not coerce individuals to act contrary to their religious beliefs. Thus, in essence, Indian religious practitioners have no First Amendment right to challenge land management decisions which affect or destroy the integrity of sacred sites. Since such sites are an integral part of traditional religions, the impact of this decision is to place Indian religions outside the protection of the First Amendment to a very large extent.

N THE 1880s, the Prophet Dances and the Indian Shaker Church enjoyed increasing influence in the Pacific Northwest, eventually spreading into California. These movements fulfilled the "need for powerful helpers and human fathers; North American messiahs and prophets of crisis cults [were] all cast in the mold of the old Indian Shamanistic god-man and culture heroes."' The Shaker Church was organized as an association on June 7, 1892 at Mud Bay, Washington, and incorporated June 20, 1910 at Olympia.2 La Barre wrote: "Every prophet is at once revivalist and modernist,"... [and each] .. . movement finds its own culture-hero or prophet. His genius is communication, particularly in his ability to establish similar subjective states in others.3 John Slocum, a Nisqually Indian of Mud Bay, Washington, and his wife, Mary Johnson Slocum, received the basic inspirations of the Indian Shaker religion in 1882. Like the Native American Church, this syncretic religion incorporated elements of Christian theology with traditional Indian religions. On June 25, 1893 at Tacoma, Washington, James Wickersham, the Shakers' attorney, recorded John Slocum's deposition regarding the incidents and prophetic insights which lead to the founding of the new religion. Church records include the few reasonably authenticated direct statements of John Slocum in his capacity of founder-prophet of the new religion, quoted in Barnett (1972). Like many other Indian prophets, Slocum reportedly died and was resurrected. After Slocum contracted a serious illness which made him "weak and poor," and after five Indian doctors had tried unsuccessfully to revive him, his "soul would die two or three hours at a time," and though Shakers disagree as to whether he "died" in the usual sense, they believe his soul was out of the body. Slocum may have believed that he in fact had died, because he said he "saw a shining light-great light-trying my soul. I looked and saw my body had no soul-looked at my own body-it was dead." Then Slocum returned and spoke to an assemblage of his friends, saying "when I die, do not cry." At that point he died a second time: "Angels told me to look back and see my body. I did, and I saw it lying down." According to the Shaker Prophet,his "soul left [his] body and went up to judgement

T HE QUESTION OF whether or not there was an aboriginal high god in the Americas has continuously reflected European ideological concerns. The late nineteenth century theories propounding an evolution of religion, with Christianity placed at the pinnacle of human development, were countered by Andrew Lang followed by Father Wilhelm Schmidt who, in his Ursprung der Gottesidee (1912), proposed a naive and pure monotheism at the very beginning of human culture. Each side utilized American Indian examples to bolster its argument. Those sympathetic with Native Americans tended to reflect Schmidt's views and assume a "primitive" monotheism as the basis of American Indian religions. American students of Native American cultures tended to avoid the controversy and concentrate on specific ethnological instances, usually finding the high god a reflection of missionary influence. W. J. McGee (1897: 182) early on pointed to "the popular fallacy concerning the aboriginal 'Great Spirit' " as an "erroneous interpretation" of the Siouan term wakanda: "Among these tribes the creation and control of the world and the things thereof are ascribed to 'wakan-da', just as among the Algonquin tribes omnipotence was assigned to 'ma-ni-do'; yet inquiry shows that wakanda assumes various forms, and is rather a quality than a definite quantity". (McGee's linguistic analysis is to be distinguished from simplistic evolutionist positions; e.g., William Jones [1905]). Alanson Skinner (1913: 79) thought in reference to the Algonkin Menomini, "Probably the sun was originally the head of the Powers above and Mati Haiwit ik [Great Spirit] is but a modern development of the old idea, through missionary influence." Frank Speck (1977/1935: 28-29) developed the same understanding in regard to the Algonkin Montagnais-Naskapi beliefs: "To the influence of missionary priests, I am now inclined to believe, may be attributed the concept of an anthropomorphic supreme deity-the historic and often discussed Tcetcimantti, 'Great Power,' commonly interpreted as 'Great Spirit.' " (Paul Radin, the eminent scholar of Amerindian religion

ACCORDING TO AN ISLAMIC TRADITION, India was the first country in which idolatry was practised and the ancient Arabian idols were of Indian origin. Indian idolatry began after Adam descended following his expulsion from Paradise on an Indian mountain called Buidh; after his death the sons of Sheth began to worship his body. Following this, a man from the sons of Cain offered to carve idols for his people so that they also would have an object of worship. He was the first man to do this. Later, in the time of Noah, the waters of the deluge washed the idols away from the Indian mountain on which they were placed, and swept them from country to country until they finally landed on the Arabian coast near Jidda. The legendary founder of Arabian idolatry, 'Amr b. Luhayy, was directed by a jinn to the place in which they were located. He found the idols and called upon all the Arabs to worship them. According to another tradition, reported by Firishtah, the Brahmans of India used to travel to Mecca in pre-Islamic times in order to pay homage to the idols and considered the Ka'ba the best place of worship.'

Felix S. Cohen, the distinguished synthesizer of American Indian law, prophetically proclaimed more than a generation ago:Like the miner's canary, the Indian marks the shifts from fresh air to poison gas in our political atmosphere; and our treatment of Indians, even more than our treatment of other minorities, reflects the rise and fall in our democratic faith …Since these words were written the practice of Indian law and of law among Indians has greatly expanded. Indian litigants have made some notable advances and suffered some setbacks. But, as the most recent revisors of the Cohen Handbook point out, “the abiding principles of Indian law have changed little” since Cohen articulated them in 1942. Included among these principles or doctrines are acknowledgement of the federal government's “trust obligation to Indians” and recognition that “Indian tribes and individuals are entitled to be free of invidious discrimination under federal and state laws.” The implications and even the truth of these principles have been extensively debated and litigated. Their relevance for the practice of Indian religions remains hazy. With the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (hereinafter AIRFA) a decade ago, there was some reason to believe that that practice might at last fall under the aegis of the trust responsibility, but the Act has been interpreted by the Courts to add nothing substantial to Indian rights and protections under the religion clauses of the First Amendment, rights and protections enjoyed by all Americans. And the Congress has done nothing since the passage of AIRFA to counter that view.