Masato Kobayashi and Bablu Tirkey: The Kurux Language: Grammar, Text and Lexicon. (Brill's Studies in South and Southwest Asian Languages.) xvii, 791 pp. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2017. $203. ISBN 978 90 04 34765 6.

Summary

A review of Matthew Clark's book "The Tawny One" argues that Vedic and Zoroastrian rituals centered on an entheogenic substance, comparing them to ayahuasca ceremonies in the Brazilian Santo Daime church. The book suggests soma/haoma rituals were primarily vehicles for psychedelic experiences, though some chapters on Greek mysteries weaken the argument. While Indologists may find no new readings of Sanskrit texts, the work productively introduces perspectives from ethnobotany, self-experimentation, ritual studies, and comparative religion, reframing the soma/haoma problem for future research.

Study at a glance

Abstract

expand as ethnobotanists make new discoveries (including perhaps kuśa/darbha grass, used throughout Vedic ritual). “Vedic and ayahuasca rituals” (chapter 15) compares textual accounts of soma rites with ethnographic accounts of rituals in the Brazilian Santo Daime church, where ayahuasca is the main sacrament; in Clark’s estimation, psychedelic experiences constitute the church’s raison d’être. Along these lines, he invites us to consider “a different way of looking at ancient Vedic and Zoroastrian ritual”, namely, as religious institutions that “developed primarily as vehicles for an entheogenic trip” (p. 170). Several chapters on Greek mystery rites (which he suggests may also have utilized an ayahuasca analogue) and “The Bronze Age origins of entheogenic cults” (chapters 16–18), though interesting as a comparative excursus, undermine the integrity of the argument and would have been better relegated to an appendix. The book finishes with potential rejoinders to the ayahuasca proposition and thoughtful concluding remarks (chapters 19–20). The TawnyOne is an interdisciplinary work of comparison, with all the promise and peril this entails: with its wide scope and heavy reliance on scholarship from diverse fields, the book risks rankling many and satisfying few. Indologists may object that Clark does not offer substantially new readings of Sanskrit materials, while South Asianists may deem his foray into ayahuasca irrelevant. But such critiques would miss the intellectual value of Clark’s contribution. In much the same way that Wasson productively injected ethnobotany into an ossified philological debate, Clark fruitfully engages perspectives that previous scholarship has discounted: selfexperimentation, ritual studies, history of consciousness, and comparative religion. While it may not solve the mystery once and for all, The Tawny One reframes the soma/haoma problem in ways that will greatly benefit future research.

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