Folk ritual traditions have long been of interest to anthropologists and ethnographers. Ralph W. Nicholas, William Rainey Harper Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago, has given us an interesting and well-written description and analysis of a ritual that is central to the folk life of Bengal. Gājan is a ritual that ends the old year and the desiccation and crushing heat of the pre-monsoon season and ushers in the rebirth of the new year.

Nicholas's description of Gājan as he observed it in 1969 is an important contribution to the study of South Asian ritual. Gājan “aims to bring back fertility, all kinds of fertility—in the fields, in the waters and in families” (p. 1). Thus, its goals are a combination of fertility, prosperity, and auspiciousness, as is common to many spring rituals. What makes Gājan different is that it is almost exclusively practiced by non-Brahmins, who “undertake severe austerities in order to qualify themselves to make offerings” (p. 2) and who, as a part of the rite, bless all houses, including those of Brahmins. A key term, interestingly enough, is not “fertility” or “prosperity,” but mangal (auspiciousness). This links Gājan ritual activity to the Mangal Kāvya literary genre, but it also links Gājan to one of the central concepts of other Hindu rituals, especially women's domestic vrat rituals. Women are active participants in Gājan, albeit secondary to the male ritualists, and an important vrat in Bengal, the Nīlā Ṣaṣṭhī (Blue Sixth) Vrat, to Ṣaṣṭhī, a protector and provider of children, is a component of Gājan (pp. 51–52, 99–112). Thus, while Gājan is a distinct tradition, it is clearly connected to other categories of religious activity, and Nicholas's analysis and description bring this out.

Chapters 2–4 report the actions of the ritual. The description is vivid and detailed, and the numerous photos are welcome embellishments of Nicholas' rich text. In this section, there is some analysis of particular elements of the rite, or particular moments within the subrituals, but chapters 1 and 5 are the primary analytical chapters. They locate Gājan within the Bengali village year and articulate the rite's connections to Sanskrit mythology. Thus, we have a valuable work that serves two purposes. By separating description and discussion, students of ritual may compare details of Gājan to other rites and festivals, and the analytical chapters provide an overview and make connections without overwhelming the reader with ritual specifics. This fine balance is quite effective.

David Curley, a member of the Department of Liberal Studies at Western Washington University, closes the text with an essay on Dharma Mangal, a folk epic whose hero is Lāusen. A manuscript adapted from the Dharma Mangal is recited during key moments in the Gājan rite (pp. 87–92). Thus, indirectly, the Dharma Mangal, long, narrative Bengali poems that explain and justify the worship of Lord Dharma as the supreme god, is the primary literary authority for Gājan. The values of asceticism leading to rebirth, a central issue in the Gājan ritual activity, is central to the Dharma Mangal texts (p. 142).

Curley's analysis of the story hinges on the theme of Lāusen's asceticism, but Curley postulates a further level: Lāusen's quest to become a rājā. In examining this quest, Curley argues that the epic reveals warrior-caste anxieties “about maternal affection for sons, about conjugal love and about jāti and gender boundaries” as well as the martial virtues of Untouchable women (p. 143). Curley's literary analysis is solid and connects the Dharma Mangal texts to other Mangal literature as well as to Sanskrit epics, particularly the Rāmāyaṇa. At more than sixty pages, Curley's essay is comprehensive, and his argument is cogent and well-supported. His inclusion of various versions is particularly important in outlining the general agreement of the textual tradition as a whole, even if different versions may vary in the details of an episode.

This book is a solid piece of fieldwork from a groundbreaking scholar as well as an interesting and important analysis of a textual tradition deserving further study. This text adds to Nicholas's already impressive body of work and is a particularly important connection to his 2003 book Fruits of Worship: Practical Religion in Bengal (New Delhi: Chronicle Books). While these two publications are not companion pieces per se, when taken together, they add significantly to our understanding of Bengali folk ritual and mythology.