Rockfort Temple at Tiruchirapalli,India: Conservation of a Sacred Landscape

Sacred sites in India are subject to many development pressures. Unlike heritage monuments, cultural and historic landscapes have not been the focus of institutional protection and preservation efforts. Using Rockfort Temple complex at Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu, as a case study, we propose that an integrated conservation approach be based upon restoring the natural and spatial archetypes that constitute the landscape vocabulary. A group of excavated and structural temples are located on a hill on the banks of the river Kaveri surrounded by a medieval fort that became the nucleus of urban growth over time. Overwhelming growth of commerce within the last half century has resulted in many problems such as traffic congestion, confusing circulation, and visual chaos, which in turn have led to the loss of sanctity. The structure of the pilgrim landscape constituted by circumambulatory paths, tanks and groves, shrines and temples can be clarified and made legible by minor design interventions such as restoring historic buildings, reviving the holy tanks, planting sacred trees, and building rest pavilions along the pilgrim path.     

庙、庙会、仪式与神圣感——以泰山王母池为例

庙宇信仰的研究中,研究者多从信仰形态、组织结构入手1,或者以信仰作为分析地方社会的切入点2进行发挥,多有卓识。本文不揣浅陋,尝试直接面对庙宇中的神灵信仰本身,试图分析在王母池道观内,神圣如何自我呈现,信仰如何被唤醒;人的活动在神圣感的生发中起到了什么作用。一泰山王母池在20世纪90年代初被确定为宗教活动场所,由泰山管委宗教处统辖,主祀王母娘娘。常住坤道五人,另有挂单道徒若干。泰山庙会是一个庙会群,会期集中在每年的春秋两季。     

The Sacred Marriage

DAVID OF SASSOUN: THE ARMENIAN FOLK EPIC IN FOUR CYCLES. Translated by ARTIN K. SHALIAN Ohio University Press, 1964, pp. 377. $10.00. Reviewed by E. O. James.

VOICES IN THE VALLEY. FRANK R. KRAMER. University of Wisconsin Press. 300 pp. $5. Reviewed by A. W. Smith.

DIE ROLLE DES HUNDES IN AFRICANISCHEN KULTUREN. By BARBARA FRANK. Studien zur Kulturkunde Vol. 17. Wiesbaden Franz SteinerVerlag, 1965. Pp.(6), 256. 5 Maps. Reviewed by E. Ettlinger.

GLI USI FUNEREI SARDI SECONDO LE VOCI DEL ‘DIZIONARIO DEGLI STATI SARDI’ COMPILATE DA VITTORIO ÁNGIUS. By ENRICA DELITALA. Offprint from Studi Sardi, XVIII for 1962–3, Gallizzi, Sassari, 1964. Pp. 65: map. Reviewed by Francis Celoria.

CONTES TRADITIONNELS DES TEILLEURS DE LIN DU TRÉGOR (BASSEBRETAGNE). By Geneviève Massignon. A. et J. Picard et Cie, 1965. Reviewed by Violet Alford.

HISTORY, TIME AND DEITY. By S. G. F. BRANDON. Manchester University Press, 1965. Pp. 240. 35s. net. Reviewed by E. O. James.

THE CAMBRIDGE ANCIENT HISTORY. Primitive Man in Egypt, Western Asia and Europe. By DOROTHY A. E. GARROD and J. G. D. CLARK. Cambridge University Press, 1965. Pp. 61.8s. 6d. net. Reviewed by E. O. James.

UNSERE ORTSNAMEN IM ABC ERKLART. By WILDHELM STURMFELS and HEINZ BISCHOF. 3rd, revised, edition. Dummlers, Bonn, 1961. Pp. 359, including Introduction, Indices and Bibliography. Reviewed by John McN. Dodgson.

THE NORTHMEN TALK. A Choice of Tales from Iceland. Translated by JACQUELINE SIMPSON. Foreword by Eric Linklater. J. M. Dent and Sons, Phoenix House and the University of Wisconsin Press, 1965. Pp. i–xxix, 290. 30s. net. Reviewed by H. R. Ellis Davidson.

ORAL TRADITION, A Study in Historical Methodology. By JAN VANSINA, translated by H. M. WRIGHT. Routledge &; Kegan Paul Ltd. 30s. Reviewed by K. M. Briggs.

GENTLE PLACES AND SIMPLE THINGS. By KEVIN DANAHER. Cork, The Mercier Press. 1964. Pp. 125. 5s. Reviewed by Theo Brown.

A FENMAN'S STORY. By W. H. BARRETT. Routledge &; Kegan Paul Ltd. May 1965. 21s. Reviewed by Beatrice Blackwood.

ONCE UPON A TIME; Fifty Hungarian Folk-Tales. By GYULA ILLYES. Translated by Barna Balogh and Susan Kun. Corvina Press. 1964. Reviewed by K. M. Briggs.

ULSTER DIALECTS; AN INTRODUCTORY SYMPOSIUM. Published by the Ulster Folk Museum, 1964. Pp. XIII, 201. 20s. Reviewed by Estyn Evans.

A BOOK OF MYTHS. Selected and retold by ROGER LANCELYN GREEN. Illustrated by Joan Liddell-Monroe. Dent, Children's Illustrated Classics. 16s. Reviewed by K. M. Briggs.

WEST COUNTRY FRIENDLY SOCIETIES. An Account of Village Benefit Clubs and their Brass Pole Heads. By MARGARET D. FULLER. The Oakwood Press for the Museum of English Rural Life, the University of Reading, 1964. Pp. xii, 73: Plates LII + map. 63s. Reviewed by Theo Brown.

STRUTTURA E ORIGINE MORFOLOGICA DEI MUTOS E DEI MUTTETOS SARDI. By A. M. CIRESE. Sardinia, Università degli Studi de Cagliari, 1964. Pp. 193. Reviewed by Francis Celoria.

DUTCH TILES. By DINGEMAN KORF. London, Merlin Press, 1963. Pp. 136. GLASS AND CRYSTAL, I, from the earliest times to 1850. By ELKA SCHRIJVER. Merlin Press, 1963. Pp. 134. Reviewed by W. Bonser.     

Risk and the Sacred: Environment,Media and Public Opinion in Bali

This exploration of controversies over environmental regulation in the Indonesian province of Bali traces the relationship between the media, environmental attitudes and Balinese identity, focusing on the religious dimension of that identity and the ways in which this has become bound up with conceptions of environmental imbalance and a popular critique of capitalist development on the island. The fusion of cultural and environmental metaphors of ‘erosion’ and ‘preservation’ in public discourse is striking in the Balinese case, since sites of great spiritual significance are also attractive to investors for their aesthetic appeal and heritage value (Verschuuren et al. 2010). From the earliest emergence of environmental conflict on the island, the emotive power of cultural identity became intimately connected with environmental politics. This article traces several of the pervasive and interconnected dichotomies ‐ sacred and profane, cultural value and economic interest, environmental preservation and use (exploitation), certainty and uncertainty (risk) ‐ that characterise debates surrounding environmental regulation and development on the island.     

Perpetual Alleluia and Sacred Violence: An Afterword

This paper re-examines Paul Schroeder's thesis concerning the new international order after 1815 and argues that the practicalities of power projection were as important in shaping foreign policy as were diplomatic principles and practices. Highlighting Wellington's role in policy-making, it re-assesses British interventions in Portugal in the 1820s to argue that the exercise of British power resulted from a range of influences apart from the adherence to the Concert system. British interventionism was constrained by the limitations of military and naval power, difficulties in securing co-operation with the Portuguese, and the nature of Portuguese politics and the Portuguese state. The experience and legacy of the Peninsular War also made British ministers sceptical about the potential impact of foreign interventions in the region during the 1820s. Interventions in Portugal demonstrated that Britain could not project power on a global or significant scale in areas where it did not locally command substantial war-making resources, as in India. Schroeder's emphasis on Concert diplomacy and C.A. Bayly's on global-reach fail, therefore, to capture the appropriate range of influences on power projection.