A. C. Graham: Unreason within reason: essays on the outskirts of rationality, xvi, 293 pp. LaSalle, III.: Open Court, 1992 (original) (raw)

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 1994

Abstract

the Indian wealth deity Vaisravana (Bisman tngri) in the Oirat incense-offering to Eternal Heaven (p. 269). Only the slaughtering dalalya, which nevertheless opens with the lamaist formula om sain amuyulang boltuyai (p. 273), and the very short 9and 55-word incantations on pp. 280-1, are without ' lamaist' references. Given this the reader is entitled to ask: how much of a text had to be ' lamaist' for it to have been rejected by the author? The phenomenology of this work may also disappoint many readers though some will doubtless consider it fitting. One consequence of a descriptive—in fact almost materialistic— approach is a lack of information on the spiritual side of the dalalya. Since the rite is a 'means of making contact with the supernatural or "other" dimension' (p. 290) a chapter on that ' " other " dimension' would have helped remedy an already incomplete picture. Nor is this an unreasonable request when the stick has seven pages devoted to it (162-3; 186-90). As it is the reader is left in the dark as to the nature of the spirits involved in the process and the exact way in which they fulfil their ritual roles. Practitioners of the dalalya do it because of their acceptance of this 'other dimension'; it is thus central to the rite and its discussion can in no way be seen as optional. Anna-Leena Siikala's Rite technique of the Siberian shaman (Helsinki, 1987) shows what can be achieved when the spiritual side is taken into account. These observations do not invalidate the information presented in the book which is of intrinsic interest. Time and again, however, this book shows clearly the dangers of attempting to disentangle Lamaism from native Mongol religion thereby creating categories of discussion which are not central to the understanding of the rituals themselves. A large part of Mongolian dalalya literature consequently remains uninvestigated in this work; this omission is only compounded by the refusal or inability to discuss spiritual aspects of the dalalya.

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