The Sutta on Understanding Death in the Transmission of Borān Meditation From Siam to the Kandyan Court

This article announces the discovery of a Sinhalese version of the traditional meditation (borān yogāvacara kammaṭṭhāna) text in which the Consciousness or Mind, personified as a Princess living in a five-branched tree (the body), must understand the nature of death and seek the four gems that are the four noble truths. To do this she must overcome the cravings of the five senses, represented as five birds in the tree. Only in this way will she permanently avoid the attentions of Death, Māra, and his three female servants, Birth, Sickness and Old Age. In this version of the text, when the Princess manages not to succumb to these three, Māra comes and snatches her from her tree and rapes her. The Buddha then appears to her to explain the path to liberation. The text provides a commentary, padārtha, which explains the details of the symbolism of the fruit in terms of rebirth and being born, the tree in terms of the body, etc. The text also offers interpretations of signs of impending death and prognostications regarding the next rebirth. Previously the existence of Khmer and Lānnā versions of this text have been recorded by Francois Bizot and Francois Lagirarde, the former publishing the text as Le Figuier a cinq branches (Le figuier à cinq branches, 1976). The Sinhalese version was redacted for one of the wives of King Kīrti Śrī Rājasiṅha of Kandy by the monk Vara?āṇa Mahāthera of Ayutthayā. This confirms earlier speculation that this form of borān/dhammakāya meditation was brought to Sri Lanka with the introduction of the Siyam Nikāya in the mid-eighteenth century. It also shows that in Sri Lanka, as in Ayutthayā, this form of meditation—which in the modern period was to be rejected as ‘unorthodox’—was promoted at the highest levels of court and Saṅgha.     

Racism and resource colonization∗

The attacks on our sovereignty and treaties are really attacks on our way of life, our way of viewing things. The environment is critical to our being. The same attacks to separate us from our resources and land are being used in Brazil, Alaska, and elsewhere. It's really racism, with many different names and faces     

Missing Masculinities: Gendering Practices in Australian Alcohol Research and Policy

The issue of ‘alcohol-fuelled violence’ has been the subject of intense policy debate in Australia. While this debate is warranted, its contours and content have been informed and shaped by a surprisingly narrow range of research resources. Narrow research engagements of this kind warrant scrutiny because they can exclude from consideration crucial issues. In this article we identify one such issue, that of gender. Following a review of the Australian literature on gender, alcohol and violence, our analysis explores four case studies drawn from the Australian research corpus, focusing on large quantitative studies as these tend to receive most attention and citation in policy debate. Such studies consistently erase the contribution of key gender dynamics, namely enactments of particular (often youthful) masculinities, to violence involving alcohol, even where they simultaneously provide strong support in their data for such a conclusion. We show how this research is mobilised specifically in support of claims about the causal role of alcohol in violence and of blanket population-level responses to the problem. There is an urgent need to map the character and scope of the tendency to erase certain gender issues in research on alcohol and violence in order to better inform policy responses.     

Developments in West European political science journal and electronic literature during 1996

Abstract. One of the most effective mechanisms for obtaining an overview of the general direction of political science in a particular country is an examination of the output of its journal literature. This article lists the contents of the 1996 issues of selected European political science journals from a range of European countries (normally, those published by national political science associations) and comments on their content. Recent developments in three types of publishing on the world wide web are also reviewed and the relevant addresses are supplied. First, print journals increasingly maintain a minimal presence on the web, but in certain cases this extends a good deal further, to include abstracts or even the full texts of selected articles and links to related resources. Second, European governments are now all represented on the web in one form or another, though they vary greatly in terms of the range of governmental institutions covered and in the volume of documentation available. Third, the huge increase in political coverage on the web makes the indexing of this material all the more important, and we offer a listing of the major guides to national political science resources.     

D. Reviews and notes: bibliographies and works of reference

RANNYAYA PERSIDSKAYA LEKSIKOGRAFIYA, XI‐XV vv. [Early Persian lexicography, 11th‐15th centuries]. By S.I. BAEVSKII. Moscow, Nauka, 1989. 166pp.

PERIODICALS IN TURKISH AND TURKIC LANGUAGES: A UNION LIST OF HOLDINGS IN U.K. LIBRARIES. Edited by MUHAMMAD ISA WALEY. Oxford, Middle East Libraries Committee (U.K.), 1993. 95pp. £20.‐

DIRECTORY OF TURKISH STUDIES 1993. Edited by MALCOLM WAGSTAFF and CHRISTINE WOODHEAD. [Southampton,] Turkish Area Study Group, 1993. 19pp. £2.00

LEBANON. Compiled by C.H. BLEANEY. (World Bibliographical Series, 2.) Oxford, Clio Press, 1991. xxxi, 230pp. Map. £39.00.

THE ILLUSTRATED ATLAS OF JERUSALEM. By DAN BAHAT, with C.T. RUBINSTEIN. Jerusalem & New York, Carta Israel Map and Publishing Company; English‐language Edition: Simon & Schuster, 1990. 152pp. £60.‐

DER NAHOSTKONFLIKT SEIT AUSBRUCH DER INTIFADA: EINE AUSWAHL BIBLIOGRAPHIE / THE ARAB‐ISRAELI CONFLICT SINCE THE OUTBREAK OF THE INTIFADAH: A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY. By IN‐GEBORG OTTO and MARIANNE SCHMIDT‐DUMONT. (Biblio, 17.) Hamburg, Deutsches Ubersee‐Institut, 1990. ix, 98pp. DM 15.‐

THE INTIFADA: THE PALESTINIAN UPRISING IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP: A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BOOKS AND ARTICLES 1987–1992. By HALA KALEH and SIMONETTA CALDERINI. (Middle East Libraries Committee Research Guides, 6.) Oxford, Middle East Libraries Committee, 1993. 59 + 10 + 50pp. [Arabic title: al‐INTIFADA. AL‐INTIFADA AL‐FILASTINIYYA FI AL‐ARADI AL‐MUHTALLA: BIBLIYUGHRAFIYYA LI‐L‐KUTUB WA‐AL‐MAQALAT i987–1992. By HALA KAYLA wa‐SIMUNITA KALDIRINI.] £25.‐

ALGERIEN‐BIBLIOGRAPHIE: PUBLIKATIONEN AUS DER BUNDES‐REPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND, ÖSTERREICH, UND DER SCHWEIZ, 1962–1989. Compiled by ERNSTPETER RUHE. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1990. 181pp. DM48.‐

OPEC AND THE WORLD ENERGY MARKET: A COMPREHENSIVE REFERENCE GUIDE. By JOHN EVANS, fully revised by GAVIN BROWN. 2nd edition. Harlow, Longman Current Affairs, 1991. xxvii+749 pp. £115.‐

WHO'S WHO IN THE ARAB WORLD 1993–1994. Eleventh edition (thoroughly revised and completed). Beirut, Publitec Publications, in co‐edition with K.G. Saur, München, 1993. 978pp. £225.00.

RELIGION IN POLITICS: A WORLD GUIDE. Edited by STUART NEWS. (Longman International Reference.) Harlow, Longman, 1989. 332pp.