9058009457

274 REYDEWS

For (92) Avarni - prakarana Ihere are 4 entries (92-95) running over nearly 3 pages.

For (168) Idgya-ralna there are three entries (168-170), (168) alone covering a page.

RgvidhSna (360) has 6 entries (260-265) the information running over 7 pages.

(595) JatS - pataJa, with 5 entries (595-599) occupies morę than 10 pages.

The title (1187) VedaJaksana has laken 6 pages.

The book is an excellent contribution to Sanskrit Vedic literaturę. It should inspire research scholars to bring out critical editions of dilTerent Vedalaksana texts and to carry on research on various aspects of this literaturę.

G. V. Davane

LIFE AND CUL TURĘ OF MATRILINEAL TRJBE OF MEGHALA YA, PRANAB K. DAS GUPTA, publishcd by Inter-lndia Publications, New

Delhi - 110015, pp. 210+38 illustrations.

The monograph, sponsored by the Anthropological Survey of India, is a dcscriptive account of the War Khasi matrilineal tribe of the Southern slopes of Meghalaya. The author had done the field-work in 1956-58, but could not complcte the writing even in 1980. During his second visit to Shclla village of the War Khasis, he finds it radically changed (pp. 171-173) during the nearly quarter cenlury of his absence from the sites of his field-work. When the author bcgan his field-work, Meghalaya was non-existent as an independent siatę. It attained its full-fledgcd slatchood on 21 st of January 1972.

This study of the War Khasis embraces various facets of the tribe’s life and culture, like family, elan, marriage, divorce, kinship, rules of inheritance, land-holding, customs and praclices associaled with birlh and death-rites with the superstitions attachcd (pp. 78-138). Interesting light is thrown on their village administration with its judicial unit (pp. 139-150). Popular beliefs in divine spirits, folk tales, charms against evil spirils, religious beliefs and practiccs, indigenous medicinc and treatment of discases, are other cultural aspects of the War Khasis described in the monograph (pp. 154-170). In brief, the author seeks to dcmonslrate how the matrilineal, endogamous War Khasis, despite their occasional similaritics with the Khasi tribe as such, are dilTerent in dialect, social customs and manners and administralive organisation.

Shclla village is situated on the stecp slope of the hill. There is no plan