The relevance of this book reaches far beyond the boundaries of Buddhist or Indian studies, for, while addressing some classical Buddhological issues, Jonathan A. Silk has presented, organized, contextualized, and—to a certain degree—cross-culturally compared many sources thus far neglected that deserve some room in the scholarly discourse on Oedipal issues in general. This monograph, therefore, is addressed not only to “those interested in Buddhist Studies and ancient India, and … in the historiography and rhetoric of religious traditions in general” (p. ix), but also to readers who might entertain a more general interest in delineating “a picture of certain, possibly universal, human psychological modes” (p. ix).

The core of the book is an inquiry into the origin of the Buddhist legend of the infamous Mahādeva, which is important and well known to scholars because it is traditionally related to the origin of the first Buddhist schism. The story goes that Mahādeva had sex with his mother, murdered his father, murdered a Buddhist saint, became a monk, and, in order to support his claim to sainthood, preached heretical doctrines shared by the majority, thereby causing a schism between the Mahāsāṁghika and the Sthavira lineages. No scholar would lend any credit to this legend, with its heinous characterization of Mahādeva, and Silk convincingly argues that, and—more importantly—fully details how it was indeed as much the product of sectarian hate as it was intentionally contrived by one party to discredit the adversarial Buddhist party. In particular, the compilers of a scholastic masterpiece, the Mahāvibhāṣā, mostly interested in defining their view of Buddhist orthodoxy, drew on narrative materials, especially on the story of Dharmaruci, still available in the Divyāvadāna, to portray the putative author of heterodox teachings, Mahādeva, as an untrustworthy sinner (see, e.g., p. 64).

While shaping his arguments, Silk, equipped with philological skills in many Buddhist languages, provides a probably exhaustive examination of all available sources on Mahādeva and Dharmaruci. In his attempt to draw meaning from context, he carefully compares these sources with many thematically related Buddhist, Hindu, and some Jaina materials, adding important new evidence for the presence of the Oedipal in ancient India, and thereby supplementing A. K. Ramanujan's and R. Goldman's results (e.g., pp. 218–20). Finally, in order to read all of this in a contrastive light, Silk turns to the Hebrew tale of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, to the medieval tale of Judas Iscariot and Cyborea, and to the story of St. Andreas of Crete, engaging to a certain degree in cross-cultural comparisons.

The results of Silk's inquiry, partly presented in his own earlier articles, are interesting in their own right, but Buddhologists should not miss the methodological importance of this study: instead of confining himself to Buddhist narrative or doxography, Silk trespasses genre boundaries, and carefully compares texts on scholastic philosophy, on monastic law, and on narrative literature, showing how they can shed light on each other so as to uncover the significance of apparently minor details, until the intents of the ancient anonymous authors become clearer. At the same time, Silk is always careful not to overstate his case, and he points to the counterevidence and to areas of uncertainty (e.g., pp. 177–78).

Buddhologists will certainly welcome this book. Scholars specializing in feminist studies, psychoanalytical approaches to literature, and medieval studies might initially miss a deeper analysis on certain issues, but they will eventually appreciate Silk's laying of a sound foundation for any future research. In this sense, the numerous detailed notes, with further translations, may represent a mine of stimuli for the inquisitive reader.

The book has been carefully edited. Few unimportant typos have come to my notice: at page xiv, 1.19, read “register a” instead of “register b”; at page xvii, 11.6–7, read “stand in contrast” instead of “stand is contrast”; and at page 308, 1.29, read “Eugène” instead of “Eugēne.”